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N 5VEMBER 1937
MO. U. 0 . MT. Office
THE GOLDEN HORSESHOE
4 Science-fiction Novel of Yellowstone
by Arthur J. Burks
I in this Issue: Nat Schachner, Warner Van Lome, John MT,
I Campbell, Jr., Eric Frank Russell, Or. E. E. Smith
I
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ON SALE THIRD WEDNESDAY OF EACH MONTH
Title Registered U. 8. Patent Office
Volume XX Number 3
November, 1937
A Street & Smith Publication
The entire contents of this magazine are protected by copyright, and must not be reprinted without the publishers’ permission.
NOTICE— This magazine contains new stories only. No reprints are used.
Novels:
THE GOLDEN HORSESHOE Arthur J. Burks 12
A science story of the phenomena in Yellowstone National Park.
QUEEN OF THE SKIES Eando Binder 76
— a city — suspended eighteen miles above the earth — ruling the destiny
of a world
Short Stories:
MARtNORRO Warner Van Lome 42
"The sea is my music and my home. Many times I have taken men
there — to learn why they exist "
LOST IN THE DIMENSIONS Nat Schachner 54
Which explains why Roger Bacon’s ideas were so in advance of his
time.
A SURGICAL ERROR Walter Anton Coole, M.D. 106
“And then I knew — I was seeing sounds and hearing light!”
Serial Novel:
GALACTIC PATROL (Part III) ...... E. E. Smith. Ph.D. 122
Continuing Dr. Smith’s finest contribution to science-fiction.
Science Features:
ATOMIC GENERATOR John W. Campbell, Jr. 69
The eighteenth in the series of scientific discussions which embrace the
entire solar system.
END OF THE WORLD 105
Editorial from the New York Times.
COSMIC RAY SHIELDS Arthur McCann 113
A scientific article.
Readers 9 Department:
EDITOR'S PAGE ...» 152
SCIENCE DISCUSSIONS AND BRASS TACKS „ 153
(The Open House ot Scientific Controversy.)
Cover by Wesso. Illustrations by Wesso, Dold, Binder, Marchioni
Single Copy, 20 Cents
Yearly Subscription, $2.00
Monthly publication issued by Street & Smith Publications, Inc., 79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York, N. Y. Artemav
Holmes, President; Ormond V. Gould, Vice President and Treasurer: Henry VV. Ralston, Vice President; Gerald H. Smith,
Secretary; A. Lawrance Holmes, Assistant Secretary. Copyright, 1937, by Street & Smith Publications, Inc., New York.
Copyright, 1937, by Street & Smith Publications, Inc., Great Britain. Entered as Second-class Matter September 13, 1333.
at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., under Act of Congress of March 3, 1879. Subscriptions to Cuba. Dom. Republic.
Haiti, Spain, Central and South American Countries, except The Guianas and British Honduras, $2.25 per year. To all
other Foreign Countries, including The Guianac and British Honduras, $2.75 per year.
We de not accept responsibility for the return of unsolicited manuscripts.
To faciiitato handling, the author should inelose a self-addressed envelope with the requisite postage attached.
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ADVERTISING SECTION
GOOD FOR BOTH SAMPLE LESSON
FREI
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OWNS PART TIME
RADIO BUSINESS
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J. E. SMITH. President, National Radio Institute
Dept. 7KD, Washington, D. C.
Dear Mr. Smith:
Without obligation, send me the Sample Lesson and your
free book about the spare time and full time Radio oppor-
tunities, and how I can train for them at home in spare
time. (Please write plainly.)
Name...,,, Ago.
Address
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.2FB
Money Back Agreement Protects You
Save Money — Learn at Home
I am sure I can train you successfully. I agree in
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Get My Lesson and 64-Page Book
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In addition to my Sample Lesson, I will send you
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J. E. SMITH, President
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Dept, 7KO Washington, O. C.
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To Make Up To *OU<inaWeek
If you ore married andvrllllng to cooperate with your life partner In operating
a Coffee Agency right in your own locality, aend your name at once for full
detail* about my plan — FREE.
It ii now possible for married couples to make up to $60 in a single week if you
can work harmoniously together. Wife handles the orders, keeps records, etc.,
while the husband delivers and collects. Steady, permanent business of one to
two hundred customers can quickly be established if you follow the simple,
proven plans that I send.
START EARNING AT ONCE
I'll send you every thing: you need — your complete outfit containing: full-size
packages of products, also printed forms, blanks, advertising literature,
samples, etc., together with simple instructions for both the husband and wife,
so you can start your earnings right away. Make as high as $45.00 your
very first week.
Everybody uses Coffee, Tea, Spices, Flavoring Extracts, Baking Powder, Flour,
Cocoa, Canned Goods, and other foods every day. They MUST BUY these things
to live. You simply take care of your regular customers right in your locality —
just keep them supplied with the things they need. You handle all the money
and pocket a big share of it for yourself. You keep all the profits — you don't
divide up with anyone. Hundreds of housewives in many localities are waiting,
right now. to be served with these nationally famous products.
I SEND EVERYTHING
Just as soon as I hear from you I will send you complete details — tell you all
the inside workings of this nation-wide Coffee Agency Plan. I will explain just
how to establish your customers ; how to give them service and make good
cash earnings. You can plan it so you give only 5 days a week to your business,
collect your profits on Friday, and have all day Saturday and Sunday for
vacation or rest. The plans I send you took years to perfect. You know they
must be good because they have brought quick help to hundreds of other men
and women, both married and single, who needed money.
FORD CARS GIVEN
Over and above the cash earnings you make I will give
you a brand-new Ford Sedan as a bonus for producing.
This Is not a contest or a raffle. I offer a Ford Car — as an
extra reward — to everyone who starts in this business.
YOU DON'T RISK A PENNY
You can start a C offee Agency and make money the first week.
You don't hare to risk a cant of your own money. I absolutely
guarantee this. No experience Is needed. You use your home
as headquarters. You can build your business on our capital.
Full details of money making plans are free. Send your name
today for the free book giving all inside facts, then you can
decide. Don't waste a minute as you might lose this oppor-
tunity through unnecessary delay. ACT AT ONCE.
ALBERT MILLS
4256M.nm.uth Av.„ ’
CINCINNATI, OHIO
WONDERFUL
SUCCESS
Reported by Others
ClareC. Wellman, N. J., tried
my plan and cleared $96.00
in a week. Hans Coordes,
Nebr., made $27.95 in a
day; $96.40 in a week. Nor-
man Geisler, Mich., reported
$33.00 profit for one day and
as high as $129.00 in a sin-
gle week. Ruby Hannen, a
woman in West Virginia,
stated that she made $17.00
in one day and $73.00 in
a week. Wilbur Whitcomb,
Ohio, reported $30.00 profit
in a day and $146.00 in one
week. I have scores of re-
ports of exceptional earn-
ings like these as evidence
of the amazing possibilities
of this money-making offer.
ALBERT MILLS, President
4256 Monmouth Are., Cincinnati, Ohio
Sond your freo book tolling how to start a local Coffee Agency
In which a married couple (or single persons) can make up to
$60.00 in a week. We will read It and then let you know if we
want to accept this opportunity.
Name .
Address
(Please Print or Write Plainly)
Please mention this magazine when answering advertisements
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BETTER HEALTH
FOR OUR BOYS AND GIRLS
Protect them against Tuberculosis,
the disease that still leads as ct
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BUY and USE
CHRISTMAS SEALS
The National, Stale, and Local Tuber-
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FUN- FASCINATION
PROFITS - IN SPARE TIME
Learn TAXIDERMY at home BY MAIL. Save your hunting
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It's fun to write short stories, articles, novels, plays, etc. —
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FALSE TEETH
60 DAYS
TRIAL
LI bare thousands of
| satisfied customers
f all orer the country
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440 W. Huron St., Dept. 1051, Chicago, Illinois
NEW
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■ 011112 WEEKS
9 ^BY SH0PW0RK-K8T BY BOOKS
I'll finance Your Training!
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Tuftloi^A»tiw~Graduatloy»*pianr''*’ w ‘' *’''*'"* “ JT POy "
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SOO S. Paulina St., Pept.77-7A, Chicago, Illinois
Help Kidneys
Don’t Take Drastic Drugs
Your Kidneys contain 9 million tiny tubes or filters which may
bo endangered by neglect or drastic, irritating drugs. Be careful.
If functional disorders of the Kidneys ©r Bladder make you ruffer
from Getting Up Nights, Nervousness, Leg Pains, Circles Under
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PILES
■A for oile suffer!
DON’T BE CUT
Until You Try This
Wonderful Treatment
for pile suffering. If you have piles in any
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read this. Write today. E. R. Page Co., Dept.
416-C3, Marshall, Mich., or Toronto, Out.
Classified Advertising
Detectives — Instructions
DETECTIVES EARN BIG MONEY. Work home or travel.
DETECTIVE particulars free. Experience unnecessary. Write
GEORGE WAGONER, 2640-A Broadway. New York.
BE A DETECTIVE. Make secret investigations. Excellent *p-
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DETECTIVES— EASY METHOD TRAINS YOU. Write Intgr-'
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Patents Secured
PATENTS SECURED. Two valuable booklets sent free. Wril©
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Washington, D. C. •
PATENTS — Reasonable terms. Book and advice free. L, F.
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PATENTS, TRADE MARKS. COPYRIGHTS. Protect your
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Help Wanted — Instructions
FOREST JOBS AVAILABLE $125-1175 MONTH. Cabin. Hunt,
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For Inventors
HAVE YOU a sound, practical invention for sale, patented or
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Correspondence Courses
500.000 USED CORRESPONDENCE COURSES and Eduratlonal
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Big Pay— Big Opportunity
Big business needs trained traffic
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Frog Raising
RAifefi GIANT FROGS! WE BUY! Good prices year sound’
Small pond starts you. Free book. American Frog Canning
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Old Money Wanted
OLD MONEY WANTED. Will pay Fifty Dollars for nickel ef
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Salesmen Wanted
MEN WITH CARS to sell new electric arc welder to mechanic#,
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Calumet. Chicago.
Crayon Sketches
LASALLE EXTENSION Bu . ln *^U,n a
Dept • 1065 -T, Chicago
Please mention this magazine
BREEZY CHARACTER SKETCH in Crayon— 19x25 inches—
Made from any photograph — One dollar. Imperial Studio, Box 549,
New Castle, Pennsylvania.
when answering advertisements
ADVERTISING SECTION
Prostate Sufferers
An enlarged. Inflamed or fault? Prostate
Gland very often causes Lameback. Fre-
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INVUtTOA EXPLAINS TRIAL OFFER. ADDRESS
MIDWEST PRODUCTS CO- B-322, KALAMAZOO. MICH.
A 5IVIALL BUSINESS
of YOUR OWN
Men and women don’t waste your life slaving for other®.
Get a copy of A SMALL BUSINESS OF YOUR OWN by
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NATIONAL LIBRARY PRESS, 110 W. 42nd St., Naw York
ITCHING TOES & FEET: (Athlete’s Foot)
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71 i CENTER STREET BELLEVUE. KY.
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Photography", particulars and requirements.
AMERICAN SCHOOL OF PHOTOGRAPHY
SGOl Michigan Avenue
Dept. 1757
Chicago, Illinois
KILL INSECTS “BUGS
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BROOKS COMPANY, 188-K State St., Marshall, Mich.
“<J have REDUCED
MY WAIST 8 INCHES
WITH THE WEIL BELT"
* • 4 writes George Bailey
11
1
M\3m^
"1 suddenly restored Art
1 kid bteoM e f«t mo*".
The boys kidded me about
my bi* "pouoch".
At parties 1 teemed tket
1 lied become e ''well
flower". Nobody wented
to dance with me*
In e batkine soft... 1 we*
immense. The day 1 beard
soma ckildran laugh at
me 1 decided to get •
Weil Belt
(
*
1 1st.
Wkgt.cktns*! Hoolc.d
t hdlti glimmer at once
end #oon 1 bed actually
taken EIGHT INCHES
off nr wet* . . . end 30
pounds off my weifktl
It seemed to support tkc
abdominal wafls end keep
tke digestive organs in
place . . . and best ol all,
1 became e« apt able (or
insurance!
1 keva n new enleyment
nf life . . . 1 work
Watte r, not better, ploy
better ... 1 didn’t reoftce
bow much 1 was misafnot
IF YOU DO NOT
REDUCE YOUR WAIST
THREE INCHES IN TEN DAYS
it won’t cost you a penny!
\V7e have done this for thousands of
YV others • • • me know we can do as
much for you . . . that’s why we make
this unconditional offer!
THE MASSAGE -LIKE ACTION DOES IT
■ You will be completely comfortable
and entirely unaware that its gentle pres-
sure is working constantly while you
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action persistently eliminating fat with
every move you make!
a Many enthusiastic wearers write that
e Weil Belt not only reduces fat but it
also supports the abdominal walls and
keeps the digestive organs in place
. . . and with loss of fat comes in-
creased endurance, pep and vigor!
IMPROVES YOUR APPEARANCE
■ The Well Reducing Belt will
make you appear many Inches slim-
mer at once, and In 10 short days If
your waistline Is not actually 3
Inches smaller ... 3 Inches of fat
gone. It won't cost you one cent I
Don't Walt. Fat Is Dangerous
S Insurance companies know the
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best medical authorities warn
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THE WEIL COMPANY, Inc. 5111. Hill St, New Haven, Conn.
Gentlemen : Send me FREE, Tout illustrated folder describing
The Weil Belt and full details of your 10 Day FREE Trial Offer.
Name
Address
Use Coupon or Send Name anil Address an Penny Put Card
Please mention this magazine when answering advertisements
The Golden
Horseshoe
le saw creatures — which could have
swallowed present-day whales with
?ase — churn the sea into froth
O NE of the world’s youngest
paleontologists, Professor Cleve
Tatum, sat on the veranda of
the hotel and stared out into the gloom
toward the steaming crater of Old
Faithful. Apparently he was the calm-
est of the people who sat there — tourists
for the most part — awaiting the next
eruption of the famous geyser.
Cleve Tatum was waiting for some-
T'rrKf'
"wjPt
; \
A science story y
/
/ of the phenomena j
in Yellowstone National I
Park
mmUi
by Arthur J. Burks
14
ASTOUNDING STORIES
thing else ; he didn’t know exactly what.
A clue perhaps ; a clue to something that
had been burning in his brain since he
had visited Dr. Jasef Siegfriedt in Red
Lodge, the night before. He’d gone
there at Siegfriedt’s request, because the
old doctor believed him a friend who
could be trusted. Siegfriedt’s latest
discovery — he had made many in the
course of the last half dozen years, at
which the world of science had come
to sneer, but remained to applaud and
heap honors upon the small town practi-
tioner — was something, he wrote Tatum,
that he feared to tell any one until he
had Tatum’s opinion.
Tatum was thinking of that now, liv-
ing over again last night’s conference
with Siegfriedt in the latter’s office.
“Look at this fossil, Tatum,” Sieg-
friedt had said, trying with some diffi-
culty to mask his excitement, “and tell
me what it is.”
Tatum had examined the figure in
the rock — a huge figure which Siegfriedt
had moved into his place with much ef-
fort, and for which he had reenforced
the floor of his study — carefully before
passing judgment. Then he stepped
back, spoke with studied slowness. “I
don’t think I’m wrong, Doc, though I
hesitate to say what I’m sure is true,
especially in view of the other figure in
the same piece of rock to which you
did not refer at all — expecting me, of
course, to note its presence.”
“You mean, Tatum ”
“The arthrodire, of course! And laid
down in the same rock formation as this
manlike figure you especially called my
attention to : this primate !”
“Then it is a primate?”
“Without the slightest doubt!”
Siegfriedt let out an explosive sigh
of relief. He took off his steamed
spectacles and polished them with hands
that trembled. Yes, the hands of Sieg-
friedt, who performed miracles of sur-
gery on smashed and broken miners
without a qualm, were shaking. And
little wonder!
"It is even” — Siegfriedt hesitated, al-
most afraid to go on, then took the
plunge — “a man?”
Tatum hesitated in his turn. His
face was a little white. He examined
the formation again before answering.
“It’s a man. Doc, as you very well know
and were afraid to say. What sort of
man, I don’t know. His like has never
been found in fossils hitherto. He’s
bigger than the Cro-Magnon or the
N eanderthaler ”
Siegfriedt grabbed the shoulders of
young Tatum, his fingers tightening
until they bruised the paleontologist’s
flesh. "And you noted the formation
in which my miners, over in the Bear-
tooth, near Chrome Mountain, found
him? You’ve seen the formation before,
Cleve! Can we be wrong?”
“No, Doc, I gave you an estimate of
that formation some months ago ”
“Which is why I asked you to come
here and see me before I told the world
of this new discovery. Tell me again,
Tatum; how long ago was that forma-
tion laid down?”
“You know as well as I do. Allow-
ing for natural human error, that forma-
tion was laid down sixty-three million
years ago!”
SIEGFRIEDT sank back in his
chair. He’d known, in his own mind,
the truth of what Tatum had told him.
But now that he had confirmation, from
the best possible source, he was left weak
and deflated.
“It means, then,” he said finally, “that
I can call in the newspapers, tell the
world that man roamed this area — be-
fore the Pacific Ocean covered it! Be-
fore the Pacific Ocean flowed over it and
then more millions of years later was
forced back when Nature cast these
Rocky Mountains up from her depths in
the grand era of mountain building !
This discovery will change the whole
THE GOLDEN HORSESHOE
IS
theory of evolution, the whole story of
mankind — for where this man was there
must have been other men ”
“Just a moment, Doc, before you
plan on giving out your story. Just
whither does this formation bear from
where you found this premountain-
building man? I’m bewildered,
stunned. I have to think.’’
“What direction does the formation
bear? Why, generally, toward Yellow-
stone Park. But what bearing ’’
“I don’t know. But Yellowstone
Park is supposed to be molten, far down,
and if this fossil were, at some distant
date, caught in a molten flow ”
“It won’t hold, Tatum. Lava would
have destroyed all traces ’’
“But wait. We’re both thinking of
things man never thought of before.
You’re thinking of a world different
from any living man or any njfUi of
recorded history — including even his-
tory written in the rocks — has ever seen.
You’re thinking of a world when con-
tinents did not even slightly resemble
continents of to-day. The continents
this man knew, for instance, might have
included ”
“Mu? Atlantis?’’
“Yes,” said Tatum, slowly nodding,
“we are thinking along the same lines,
aren’t we? For Mu and Atlantis both
flashed through my mind just before you
spoke. See where this thing might lead
us? The world would call us crazy.
Therefore, we have to find proof— some-
thing to back up our story of this man
who roamed here sixty-odd millions of
years ago — maybe before the dinosaur
laid the eggs you startled the world
with a couple of years ago! You see
why I thought of Yellowstone? Its
wonders are the closest to those which
filled the world in the time of ”
“The arthrodire! The earliest sea
creature of rock record with a different
physical make-up, definitely connecting
it with to-day’s low sea forms !”
“Right! You stay here, Doc. I’m
making a visit to Yellowstone, to find
a clue to lead us further. I’ll come back
if I fail, send for you if I find it, and
we’ll dig into it together. Of course,
full credit goes to you as the discov-
erer ”
“No ! No ! I needed your confirma-
tion to prove ”
CLEVE TATUM had got that far in
reliving his last night’s conference with
Dr. Siegfriedt, when the words of his
nearest neighbors broke in on him.
“Sometimes the interval between any
two eruptions of Old Faithful is as much
as seventy-five minutes, sometimes as
little as forty-seven, with the average
almost exactly on the hour! Strange,
isn’t it, that it should vary so! The
other geysers hereabouts, and those over
in Norris Geyser Basin ”
“You know,” interrupted another
man, whose face Tatum could not see
clearly in the gloom, “queer fancies
come to a chap in a place like this. Yel-
lowstone Park, where the earth is still
young ! Where it hasn’t yet reached the
Ice Age ! Where everything is so close
to things as they were in the days of the
great reptiles! Take Old Faithful, for
instance, with its strangely erratic
periods of eruption. I get that feeling
of vast, awesome machinery, miles be-
low the surface, that isn’t running
exactly right! You know, that has
something wrong with its carburetors,
a blown gasket, a cracked piston ring
perhaps ”
It was just, of course, an imaginative
man saying things inspired by the
strange surroundings of Yellowstone,
but something like a cold chill caressed
the spine of Cleve Tatum as he listened.
“Out of the mouths of babes and suck-
lings ” Out of the mouths of fools
and tourists! Tatum’s brain went a
little numb with the thought that was
growing inside it. Maybe the talking
fools, never suspecting that something
cataclysmic was in their words, would
16
ASTOUNDING STORIES
lead him further. Cleve Tatum believed
in telepathy, in fact in ,fM/>ertelepathy,
by which he explained the strange in-
spirations that come, sometimes, to men
of genius, apparently from outside. If
the talking fools were receiving sets —
well, it certainly wasn’t beyond the
bounds of possibility
At this point some one yelled : “There
she goes!”
Old Faithful had been uttering her
usual preparatory growls. Now, against
the bright moon over Yellowstone, she
suddenly hurled her white plumes of
steam and boiling water into the sky to a
height of well over a hundred feet. She
looked like a mighty ghost coming out
of a hole that led down to “caverns
measureless to man.” Cleve Tatum
watched, spellbound, as had millions of
people before him, until the fury of Old
Faithful subsided — and the talk of his
companions on the veranda sounded
through again.
“Things like Old Faithful, who has
been doing this for countless millions
of years, far’s we know, and will proba-
bly be doing it millions of years hence,
make you realize the unimportance of
time, the puniness of mankind. It’s
easy to believe what some idealists do,
what some of our best minds profess
to believe, and which seems reasonable —
certainly in surroundings like this —
when you take into consideration that
everything known to science to-day, and
everything science has yet to learn, has
existed from remotest time; by which I
mean, of course, the basic elements,
electricity and, well, you know, every-
thing like that. Of course, I don’t be-
lieve that millions of years ago there
were automobiles and electric lights —
though why couldn’t there have been a
race of men, of which no trace remains
to-day that we can find, who invented
similar things? Eh, I ask you? Seems
silly, sometimes, to insist that in a world
a billion years old or a hundred times
that — that sentient beings, not neces-
sarily men, only existed in the last few
million of years. Maybe there have
been vast cycles of time, of humanity,
even ”
Tatum was listening with bated
breath. The man who talked was ob-
viously letting his imagination run wild,
saying things he’d have pooh-poohed at
any other time and place — especially if
spoken by some one else — just to hear
himself talk, to talk in tune with his
surroundings.
In tune with his surroundings !
The speaker leaned toward his lis-
tener. “Why, do yod know that there
are vast areas of Yellowstone Park
closed to everybody? Areas where
there may be almost anything, for all
the world knows? Areas which haven’t
even been explored ? That are not
definitely known to be either safe or un-
safe for human beings ”
CLEVE TATUM, trying to keep the
excitement out of his voice, leaned to-
ward the speaker. "Might a stranger
ask about where these areas lie? I’ve
been listening with a great deal of
interest to your fancies ”
"Fancies, sir? Fancies? And who
is to say they are fancies? Can any-
body dispute them, prove they’re
fancies? Why, sir ”
"Let’s say I didn’t use the word
‘fancies.’ Perhaps you’ll forgive me and
answer my question. I’d be deeply
appreciative.”
The man grunted. “Well,” he said,
“you know where the Morning Glory
Pool is?”
“Yes, indeed. And an indescribably
beautiful pool it is, with a purple crater
twisting down ”
“That’s it exactly, twistipg down to
what? Oh yes, well, you’ll recall the
geysers directly beyond the pool, almost
in line from here, across the location of
the Morning Glory Pool?”
"Yes.”
“Well, there are geysers beyond
THE GOLDEN HORSESHOE
17
those. The people here don’t encour-
age tourists to go much beyond sight of
the main road, yet through the woods
you can see the steam jets of other gey-
sers. Beyond them are others, while
beyond them Look, mister, I don’t
like to get thinking about Yellowstone
in detail. It frightens me, especially at
night, to think of all the strange, awe-
some things that are going on under our
feet. Glory be, what it would be like to
be lost, afoot, on a dark night, some-
where in Yellowstone Park ! I wouldn’t
even walk down the road after dark for
all the gold in the world — all the gold
in the world, I tell you !”
Tatum thanked the man, sat back, his
heart hammering like a trip hammer. It
was odd that the man should have men-
tioned “all the gold in the world,” for
last night Siegfriedt had said, talking of
the Beartooth — and not, at the moment,
about his “find” — that a literal “golden
horseshoe,” a colossal stratum of gold,
started across the Beartooth from Red
Lodge, went for hundreds of miles in
a vast, rough semicircle — or horseshoe—
and ended within a mile or so of Red
Lodge.
Siegfriedt had said: “If that gold
were ever mined, all at once, it would
make gold cheaper than pebbles, cheaper
even than sand on the beaches of the
oceans ”
Tatum smiled as he recalled the state-
ment. All the gold in the world, para-
doxically, wouldn’t be worth much. But
he didn’t explain that to the speaker.
Instead, he rose, started down the steps.
“Where are you going?” asked some
one on the veranda.
“Thought I’d have a look at those
geysers beyond Morning Glory Pool
by moonlight?”
“Why, you fool, after what I just
said ! Something horrible might happen
to you, something ”
“I’ve always wanted something — well,
not horrible, but, let us say, cataclysmic,
AST— 2
to happen to me. Maybe to-night’s the
night. Care to come along?”
But there was no answer from the
veranda. Or if there were, Cleve Tatum
didn’t hear it. He was walking rapidly
toward the Morning Glory Pool, and
whatever might lie beyond — with the.
deep conviction in his soul that the talk-
ing fool on the veranda of the hotel had
given him a clue to the solution of the
nebulous something suggested last night
in Siegfriedt’s Red Lodge study, while
the sightless eyes of a man sixty-three
million years dead looked calmly down
upon him
II.
IT WAS not in Cleve Tatum to be
afraid. He was too much the cool-
headed scientist. But he could under-
stand how average folk, abroad by acci-
dent or design at night in Yellowstone,
could be frightened dreadfully. Yel-
lowstone was the world when it was
young — as science rebuilt it. Yellow-
stone was almost the proof that they
were right.
No sooner had he left the hotel behind
than he felt the strangeness — the youth-
fulness — of Yellowstone. Even the
moon, riding high over Norris Geyser
Basin, on the road to Mammoth Hot
Springs, looked newly washed, smiling.
Near at hand the thick trees were like
other trees at night. But a little farther
on they were black blobs of shadow —
black piles of shadow out of which, here
and there, yonder and almost every-
where, came puffs of white, as though
invisible mortars were firing at the sky
— invisible mortars that made little or
no sound. They indicated the presence
of geysers, great ones and small ones.
The steam from them dropped down,
after their leap aloft, and fled across
the treetops like shrouds driven by
breezes Cleve Tatum could not feel.
It made him feel unreal himself, as
though he were on another planet.
He came to a startled pause. He
18
ASTOUNDING STORIES
saw himself lying flat on the ground, on
his back. Then he laughed a bit
shakily. It was his reflection in Morn-
ing Glory Pool. It gave him a slight
touch of terror, at that, because the pool
was surrounded only by eight-inch logs,
lying end to end to form a rough circle
about the crater that was brimful of
scalding-hot, blue water. To stumble
over the logs would have meant death —
and a sinking into the funnellike crater
he had studied during daylight.
Yes, even here, where people came,
Yellowstone was dangerous. He won-
dered what tales, out of the past, this
pool could tell if it could talk. Indian
maidens, perhaps, had plunged into this
pool to forget lost loves. All sorts of
animals, naturally, had stepped into it
in days when there had teen no guards
about it at all — though eight-inch logs,
lying flat on the ground, could scarcely
be called guards.
He circled the Morning Glory Pool,
strode on toward the many geysers be-
yond. Now, in spite of what his feet
told him — that he trod a regular, well-
tested path — he walked with his eyes,
most of the time, on the ground. Now
and again he paused to look about him
and listen to the majesty of the earth
in travail.
And he couldn’t get that “clue” out
of his head — that “fancy” of the talker,
about machinery hidden deep under-
ground, ancient machinery, perhaps,
which somehow caused these jets of
steam all over Yellowstone ; these jets
of steam that were slightly irregular in
their spoutings, as though the machinery
were getting out of tune, or growing
old and falling apart.
“Nonsense!” he told himself. “Ma-
chinery! Who, or what, operates it?
And what's the sense of it?”
To follow that thought took him back
to Siegfriedt’s primate and that man’s
time in hitherto unrecorded history. All
of Yellowstone Park had once been
under what the world now knew as the
Pacific Ocean if Siegfriedt and paleon-
tologists who agreed with him were
right. That had been uncounted mil-
lions of years ago. Then the mountains
had risen, and the ocean had been pushed
back — Yellowstone Park and the
Rockies had been born. That primate
had walked this land before the Pacific
covered it!
It made time seem small indeed, un-
important, but only because it covered
a period too vast for man to grasp. It
was difficult for man to grasp a time
previous to his own first memories. He
could no more think back beyond that
than he could see what would come into
the world after his death.
Tatum was feeling more and more the
stranger on an alien, unnamed planet.
This feeling grew on him the farther he
pushed in among the geysers. He left
the regular path — after how much time
he did not even guess — and guided him-
self in what he thought a very simple
manner, by traveling toward the next
nearest geyser. One could see their
jets on the darkest night, he was con-
vinced of that. But now he was moving
into unknown territory and — who knew ?
— there might be craters all around him
which had been dead for ages — large,
gaping craters, into which a man might
plunge endlessly, twisting, falling, down
and down. It made him gasp, just to
think what it would be like — for ex-
ample — if the Morning Glory suddenly
went dry, and one fell into the abysmal
crater of it.
So, he felt his way with his feet. He
could travel faster than most men this
way, because his feet were educated in
such travel. For the paleontologist they
had to be. Often the paleontologist’s
mind was so concerned with what he
did that a misstep might mean death,
and he might take it without ever real-
izing it. So one learned to think with
one’s feet as a separate act of thinking.
On and on he went. He noticed
that each geyser had a different sound.
THE GOLDEN HORSESHOE
That one to his left stuttered, like an old
man with his teeth missing. That one
to the right screamed — a slobbering kind
of scream — as though its lips w T ere
slashed and torn. One sounded like a
peanut whistle. Another roared. An-
other whined. He kept thinking of them
and their sounds
BY THE TIME he had gone per-
haps two miles into uncharted territory,
it struck him with the force of a blow
that all the geysers, heard together,
formed a system of sounds. There was
a pattern to them that perpetually re-
peated itself. Oddly, he thought, like
cylinders on a many-cylindered motor
car, working in unison. Now and then
there was a discordant note, as though
a cylinder were missing !
“That talker has me going, no doubt
about that !” thought Tatum. “And that
thought of my own, about his talking ‘in
tune with his surroundings’ ! It’s not
especially silly, at that. Sensitive peo-
ple, entering a room where others have'
suffered, feel the shadow, the od, of
that suffering. Why, then, shouldn’t
they feel this, on a larger scale? Do
I mean that this land is suffering?”
That made him think of the primate
again and what, several times last night,
he had thought was an expression of
suffering on the fossil’s- face. “Non-
sense!” he told himself again. “I’m let-
ting fancy interfere with calm, scientific
research !”
He began to realize that he was mov-
ing forward faster than was com-
mensurate with safety, to realize that
something was wrong. He tried for a
little time to figure it out. He stopped,
took off his hat, wiped the sweat off his
brow. The geysers filled the night with
clammy heat. Then, of course, down
below — nobody knew how far down —
there must be plenty of heat. He looked
at his hat. With a low laugh, he threw
it away. It didn’t fit in. A simple
19
thing, but it helped. He was never to
know exactly how.
His black hair now blew free in the
breezes that kept the steam jets traveling
through the trees. In a general way,
he was traveling into the west. All he
had to do to get out of here was travel
east ; return would be simple. But he
gave little thought to that. There’d be
food in the woods, of one kind or an-
other. In case of need he could knock
an antelope over with a rock. They
were protected here, and almost tame.
And there were other animals. And
water — boiling water here, ice-cold
water there, beside it. A land of im-
possibilities.
Everything was here. Mammoth Hot
Springs, building its mines of travertine
that would be hard enough to polish
some million years hence. Firehole
River, lined on one side with black
basalt, proof of volcanic action which
might have taken place before the ocean
was pushed back. All the metals known
to man were here somewhere: gold, sil-
ver, barium, chrome, coal — all the ages
of metal.
Yellowstone Park was the gathering
place of everything science had ever
discovered and classified. Why, if it
were not a place set aside for man’s
amusement, but were exploited — work,
food, shelter and machinery for a race
of people could be managed right here!
Had it done exactly that, sometime in
the past?
While his scientist’s brain pondered
these questions, his trained feet led him
safely deeper and deeper into the unex-
plored area of Yellowstone Park. He
didn’t realize this until his feet betrayed
him, almost led him into a broad, black
pool that bubbled. He smelled the
odor of tar. He shivered, knowing what
would have happened to him, had he
stepped into that.
He bent his steps to the left, walked
for a hundred yards or so. A boiling
stream of water, just too wide to jump
20
ASTOUNDING STORIES
across — if one could have survived a
jump through the steam — barred his
way. He turned to the left again. This
time he traveled perhaps an eighth of
a mile before he was brought tp a halt
again. Another boiling stream came
from the left, to empty into the one he
had been following.
A little startled, he followed the sec-
ond stream because he could do noth-
ing else. A quarter of a mile, and a
third stream poured into the second.
He followed this to a series of geysers,
set close together, that he recognized.
He had passed this way. But how had
he missed those bawling, boiling
streams? How had he failed to hear
them? The answer to that was sim-
ple. He had been thinking, and with
the thinker who concentrated, all sound
was shut out. He wouldn’t have heard
Old Faithful, had she erupted in his
face.
He followed the row of geysers which
were connected by bubbling, boiling
streams — and was brought to pause by
the tar pit!
“I can’t get out,” he said to himself,
“but how did I get in here, without
being parboiled or even getting my feet
wet? I’m a prisoner, but how did I get
that way?”
There had to be a way out, because
he had found a way in. He’d find it by
covering, carefully, the area he had just
circumambulated.
He faced away from the tar pit,
started across the rough rectangle
formed by pit, geysers and streams. He
crossed to the stream — the second
stream — and started back.
FOR fully two hours he crossed and
crisscrossed the circumscribed area, puz-
zled, furious with himself because his
agile brain couldn’t deliberately figure
out a puzzle which had been no trouble
to his feet on the way in. Then he
stopped, stock-still.
Far below him, as though at the foot
of an incline he hadn’t encountered be-
fore, was a rectangular shape that
glowed, as though reflecting the light
of the moon. He squinted, stared,
turned his head away and looked up.
The brightly washed moon seemed to be
watching him. Yes, it was the reflection
of the moon, all right; but on what?
Slowly he approached, while the glow-
ing outline held its rectangular form.
Under his feet the hard ground — most
of his way had been over rough, jagged
basalt that had almost cut the shoes from
his feet — sloped swiftly away. When
he had gone a few feet down the slope
he gasped with amazement. The rough-
ness under his feet had become smooth-
ness ! This incline had either been cut
by the hand of man, or Yellowstone had
a miracle not yet discovered.
Or maybe the whole world knew of.
this place, and only he had not been
told. Maybe it was one of the famous
wonders of Yellowstone. As he moved
forward and downward more con-
fidently, he was sure of it. That rec-
tangular shape was apparently a high,
massive door. Human hands must have
put it there.
He stopped, gasped. His own shadow
appeared on the door, grotesque, mon-
strous! No sooner had his shadow
touched it than the door began slowly
to open. That gave him a slight chill,
but it wasn’t the surprise of it so much
as the sound the door made as it opened
— seemingly with no hand to move it, no
machinery to operate it. It was open-
ing with strange unearthly screams of
protest, as though its hinges were rusty
from years, ages even, of disuse!
He could see plainly, because the in-
cline had become a stope, from walls,
floor and roof of which came a light that
filled the slanting tunnel with a radiance
brighter than midday in summer !
“Hurry!” said a voice, “so that the
door may close and darken.”
Automatically he obeyed, stepping
THE GOLDEN HORSESHOE
2!
past the door. It creaked shut behind
him with a grim note of finality.
“Do not be afraid,” said the voice
again. “You will return in safety.”
Not until he had left the door well
behind him did he realize that he hadn’t,
actually, heard the voice. Rather, in
some inexplicable way, a message had
struck his brain with such unmistakable
meaning that he had thought he heard
the voice.
“Anyway,” he thought, “the message
was in English. Whatever the stunt
is, it can’t be very disturbing — espe-
cially to me.”
He was conscious of walking in some-
thing that eddied about his feet like —
like — well, as though he were walking
through pulverized leaves in a forest.
He stopped, looked down. So far, he
"had made one mistake. He had been
sure that the bright light, whose source
he had not yet discovered, came from
floor, ceiling and walls. Now he knew
it did not come from the floor — because
he stooped, lifted the stuff through
which his feet had slid, and stared at it.
His eyes bulged. His heart, for a
moment, almost stopped beating. The
fine stuff in his hand was gold ! No
paleontologist worth his salt could mis-
take it ! And Nature, he now knew,
had never, unaided by other intelligence,
dug this swiftly descending tunnel.
For a full minute he' gave himself a
careful examination to make sure that
he was not mad. Then, shrugging, he
accepted things as he found them — im-
possible as they seemed — and strode
deeper into the bowels of Yellowstone to
find the reason for them, forgetting his
promise to send for Jasef Siegfriedt.
And so, at last — how long later he
did not pretend to know — he came to
another door, which opened as had the
first, when his shadow touched it. He
stepped through. As he did so, the tun-
nel along which he had come went dark
with the darkness of a mile-deep mine,
and the second door closed. When he
heard it fall snugly shut behind him,
light again bathed him — light as bril-
liant as that which had died behind him.
He caught a glimpse of a vast cavern.
Then he almost screamed — for the man
who faced him — the man who stood
against a broad wall of travertine that
was simply one of the walls upholding
the roof of the cavern — was Siegfriedt’s
primate.
Only, this one seemed alive. And
this one spoke : “I am Tlalak. I bid you
welcome. You have been a long time
coming. Sit down on the bench to your
right while I attempt to explain to you.”
III.
CLEVE TATUM glanced to his
right, where a bench of polished traver-
tine was hewn out of the living rock,
and sat down, rather limply. His mouth
hung open as he stared at the man who
called himself Tlalak — -a man who stood
all of seven feet in height, a man who
could have broken Tatum in two with a
twist of his hands.
“The mechanism which presents me
to you began moving when the second
door went shut. I am sorry that no
mechanism is possible that will present
you to me. I speak to you, as you must
realize, from the grave. How old that
grave is, you will, perhaps, know. I
can never know, because it is not given
to mankind to see so far into the future,
or even to conceive of such a length of
time. I can only estimate that it will
be millions upon millions of seasons. I
base this on history of other times, when
the ocean had risen, covered the land,
been driven back by the rising moun-
tains, covered the land again ”
Tatum’s brain whirled as he tried to
conceive of what this man was putting
into the simplest of words. Words!
English words !
A smile, infinitely sad, crossed the
swart face of the man called Tlalak. “I
have no means of knowing what your
22
ASTOUNDING STORIES
language will be. I can only hope that
evolution will approximately repeat
itself, and that man will again walk this
section of the earth, as I am sure he
walks the earth in areas beyond our
reach. You probably think you can
hear me — or such is my hope — speaking
your own language. But surely, by this
time, you realize that I do not speak
at all ! How could I reach your under-
standing with a language that had, by
the time you come to Tardan. been dead
for ages? No, my friend, gentleman or
lady, I do not reach you through your
ears. A sound strikes your ear, sends
an impression to your brain, perhaps
the name of an object. Your brain visu-
alizes the object suggested by that word,
that name, that you understand because
it is the language you know. The word
means something to you. But no word
I speak could possibly mean anything,
for I am the last of my race, and there
is none to keep my language alive. It
would be possible to preserve that lan-
guage, so you could hear; but I cannot
chance the possibility that no key could
be found to it. So, I speak to you not
by way of your ears, but directly to your
brain !
“It is not simple. The mechanism
which makes it possible is installed in
the rock behind and above you, where
your scientists — when you take the tale
of your visit back to a world I will never
see, nor can even visualize— may make
such use of it as they will.”
Cleve Tatum started to his feet. “My
Lord!” he shouted. “You are explain-
ing motion pictures of the distant fu-
ture, when, no matter in what language
they speak, they are understood by the
audience in their own various tongues !”
Tlalak paid him not the slightest heed.
Tatum’s voice went rocketing through
the mighty cavern, echoing and reecho-
ing. It came to Cleve Tatum then, a
hint of the vastness yet to be explored,
a consciousness of his own smallness in
the great immensity. As though, at this
point, he expected his audience of one
to be startled, even stunned Tlalak
paused — and that sad smile was still on
his face.
“My words,” said Tlalak, “have been
given to the mechanism. The mechanism
receives, passes on — passes on the mean-
ing. The mechanism is a delicate brain
that transmits meaning to your brain —
most of it in words you will understand.
Perhaps there will be words you will
not understand. They will doubtless be
names of things, creatures, customs, per-
haps, known to us, unknown to you.
You will have to bridge the gaps as best
you can. The pictures you will see,
where I now stand, will aid you in
bridging these gaps. Such is my hope.
If I have erred, then the civilization of
Tardan is lost beyond recall ! A grave
responsibility is mine. I would give all
the wealth of Tardan if I could face you
in the flesh, see you, greet you and speak
to you in some common language. But
even to express this wish is an idle waste
of time.”
CLEVE TATUM sat enthralled,
watching the face of Tlalak. It did
not seem possible that he was actually
receiving a message from a time beyond
the Ice Age. beyond the Rocky Moun-
tains, beyond conception. He listened
for the sound of the .mechanism Tlalak
had mentioned, and heard nothing. He
could not forbear a smile, when he
thought of the noise of present-day pro-
jection machines.
“We must be careful, very careful.
I appeared to you when the second door
closed. But when I have finished my
introduction, you yourself must take the
next step. Under the end of the
bench on which you sit is a row
of buttons. The button nearest me, when
pressed full down, will show you seg-
ments of our earliest history. The next
button will show you our communal
life as it has been lived for a dozen
generations. The next button will show
THE GOLDEN HORSESHOE
Yes, it was the reflection of the moon, all right — but on what?
s
24
ASTOUNDING STORIES
you the animal life that has ceased to
exist above us, because of the eating
up of the land by the sea. Needless to
say, you will actually hear the sounds
of all that. The next will show you the
encroaching sea, and the beasts that live
in it, will show you the sea as it finally
covers our Tardan with its crushing,
catastrophic weight. The last button
will show you our life in Tardan —
underground city which we have, by the
work of generations, prepared against
the day when the waters cover us.
Select which of these you wish to see.
At the end of each I will be back, pre-
pared to lead you to the next stage on
the journey into the heart of Tardan!
In the event of failure of the mechanism,
which is unlikely but possible, due to
the vast lapse of time unused, walk
to the door until your shadow appears
upon it. It will open. Step back. When
it closes, I will begin again, just as I
began when you entered! Now, you
have all the time you wish in which to
choose where and when you will start !”
Tlalak stood for a moment, then van-
ished, to show Tatum only the smooth
white wall of travertine — a wall perhaps
forty feet wide, by twenty feet thick, and
a hundred feet in height.
“Whew !” Tatum leaned back against
the wail, wiped the perspiration from
his brow. Then he sat up. He wasn’t
really hot, for the air in this place was
delightfully cool, utterly pleasant. It
was a welcome change from the muggy,
sticky atmosphere of Yellowstone and
her geysers.
Yellowstone ! To-night it had seemed
like another planet. Right now it seemed
even more another planet. It seemed
ages away in time, distance and per-
spective. And for a good reason. In
this place it zvas ages away in time, dis-
tance and perspective, because the peo-
ple who had created this Tardan men-
tioned by Tlalak — Tardan, of which this
was only the entrance, where Tlalak
stood to bid the visitor welcome — had
never seen Yellowstone or even con-
ceived of such a place. Or had they?
Tatum pinched himself, grinned. “I'm
not crazy,” he said. “I’m not having
a nightmare, and Tlalak meant exactly
what he said. How will it affect my
mind to go on? A cavern which has
plainly been shut off from the world
for aeons, yet in which the air is sweet
and cool! Air conditioning! Ridicu-
lous — or would be if I hadn’t already
seen and listened to — or been telepathed
by — Tlalak! Now, what do I wish to
see first?”
HE FELT FOR, found a button,
pressed it full down. It moved easily,
smoothly.
Tlalak came back. There was happi-
ness in the smile he bent on Tatum.
It seemed almost impossible to realize
that Tlalak wasn’t really there — that,
actually, he hadn’t been there for mil-
lions of years.
“You are wise to press the last button.
It proves your logical mind. I will show
you Tardan and the mechanisms by
which it survives below the sea. Then,
when you are satisfied that you have
been sufficiently prepared, I will take
you into Tardan itself — a Tardan, alas,
in which nothing sentient exists, where
only the machines move smoothly on,
self-existent and self-repairing. Pray
Heaven that we have not been mistaken
in them. If we have, Tardan will never
be found, save in ruins incapable of res-
toration after millions of years under
the sea. Their primary function is to
keep back the waters of the sea! Their
other functions, of course, are count-
less, but this is the first and most im-
portant, even now, when only I am left
in Tardan. I must tell you that much
you see, everything you see, will be
terrifying, in spite of the fact that what
you see are incredibly ancient shadows.
By pressing the last button again, you
need not see!”
Tatum hesitated, glanced a bit fear-
THE GOLDEN HORSESHOE
25
fully to his right, into the bright heart
of the cavern— so empty, so filled with
the echoes of his own breathing, like
whispers out of the dim past. He
pursed his lips with determination and
did not press the button a second time.
Tlalak waited a moment, as though
: to ; give him time. Then he smiled, said :
“Good! You have courage, too! Good-
by for a little while !”
A vast concourse of people burst into
view, amid a great roaring of sound.
Tatum leaned forward to study them,
marveling at the photography which
brought out each individual in such a
huge gathering. He was looking into
a tremendous city — a city whose streets
were hewn from the living rock, whose
roof, hundreds of feet above, was the
.living rock of the earth’s crust, and
whose buildings, of many shapes, of
many sizes, were all of the same height
—for the simple reason that their bases
were the floor, their roofs the common
ceiling. The buildings themselves were
columns which supported that awesome
roof.
He tried at first to identify the sound
—and it was almost as though he entered
into the picture itself, became one with
the people depicted there. He gazed
fearfully aloft with them, at the domed
ceiling whence the terrifying sound came
—which now he was able to identify be-
cause, for a brief moment, the picture
changed to show him the surface of the
.earth and the first rushing, supermoun-
tainous, tidal waves that had drowned
that surface. He saw the waters swirl,
become monstrous, Gargantuan mael-
stroms as they met in unbelievable, in-
conceivable tide rips — as they piled, tidal
wave on tidal wave, up on the earth’s
surface. He heard the first protests of
the vast roof of Tardan.
The picture flashed back to Tardan
itself — back over the frightened, up-gaz-
ing people, blotted them out — showed
him maze upon maze of what he knew
instantly to be machinery, but such ma-
chinery as he had never, in his wildest
flights of imagination, conceived. For-
ests of it, labyrinths of it, smoothly, effi-
ciently working Just where it was,
in relation to the people, he could not
tell. He would find out, he gathered,
when finally, in the flesh, he went into
the heart of long-dead Tardan.
He could wait for that. But the pic-
ture — which amazingly was able to show
vast panoramas in the area that hitherto
had been occupied by Tlalak — made
plain the reason for the machines.
They were there, in readiness, to keep
the waters of Mother Ocean from de-
stroying the people of Tardan — to make
sure that not even a hint of seepage came
through that tremendous roof!
NOW the picture changed, to further
clarify the meaning of those machines.
A cross section was shown of the rock
and soil that extended upward from the
roof to what had been the surface of the
earth, and now was the floor of the
ocean
Tatum grew dizzy for a moment, re-
membering something he had seen in a
building near the hotel by Old Faith-
ful — a cross section so nearly like this
one that the memory startled him.
This cross section showed the waters
of Mother Ocean seeping inexorably
down, reaching for Tardan to drown it,
obliterate it ; that cross section, done by
engineers who thought they knew all
about Yellowstone’s substrata, showed
the causes, gaseous activity and general
upward routes taken by Yellowstone’s
geysers — from inception to periodic
eruptions! The parallel was startling,
to say the least.
But now it became more startling
still — for the cross section, on the traver-
tine “screen,” showed the power of the
mechanisms, stopping the seepage of
the water, hundreds of feet above the
roof of Tardan— stopping it dead, at
first — then slowly, surely, and with
tremendous force, driving it back, up
26
ASTOUNDING STORIES
to and through the floor of the ocean,
back into the vastness of the water
which had lowered it, like deathly ten-
tacles, toward Tardan — forced it back
with such power that the back-flung
water shot into the ocean from below,
there to spray out — whitely visible ki
the water, black with depth — to heights
varying from a few to spores of feet!
The result appeared to be undersea gey-
sers, erupting with tremendous force
through the deep
Tatum was stunned by the thought
this cross section led him to, until he
remembered something else he had seen
that day in Yellowstone — in fact in Yel-
lowstone Lake — along the whole western
side of which he had seen the steam jets
of geysers, far out in the water. Where
the water shelved off to great depths, of
course, no steam was visible ; but did
that indicate that no geysers erupted
from those depths ?
“My Lord,” thought Tatum, “what
has all this to do, if anything, with the
geysers I saw to-day ! What in Heaven’s
name am I going to see down here, be-
fore I see those geysers again — and
what will they mean to me when I go
back?”
IV.
COULD the mechanisms of Tardan
be the cause of the geysers? But how?
It was absurd, of course. But was it?
Suppose humanity was going to be bur-
ied by the sea. Would it sit supinely
by and make no preparation to survive ?
Certainly not. And where would it go
to escape? Well, Tardan had gone
underground. Some day humanity
would perhaps again go underground,
or into the air. In any case, Cleve
Tatum would have some sort of answer
before he was finished with Tardan.
As he watched the story of Tardan
and its people unfold, he thought of a
belief of modern scientists — though who
could possibly say who, or what, was
“modern” ? — that the sun was sure, one
day, to explode, perhaps at any minute
burning every living thing on the face of
the earth. Given sufficient warning,
where would humanity go to survive?
Into the deep earth, if it could be made
habitable and could, in some manner, be
insulated against the heat. And, given
time, science would find the answers, just
as the scientists of Tardan appeared to
have found the answers — to everything
except how to survive whatever catastro-
phe had overtaken them. They’d kept
back the sea — and the machinery with
which they had done it still moved on,
through the ages, despite the millions of
years that there had been no ocean above
Tardan.
“And they built with amazing archi-
tectural surety,” thought Tatum, “for
Tardan has plainly, and bodily, survived
the era of mountain building that drove
back the sea!”
Jumbled, chaotic thoughts! How
many times had the earth been empty
of all life save the very lowest known,
the unicellular creatures, and from them,
through the seons-long processes of
evolution, became populated with crea-
tures that were men, or approximated
men?
Suppose the sun did burn all life upon
earth, would earth again gradually cool,
gradually become repopulated through
the seons — even back, through millions
of years, to man once more ? It seemed
reasonable. How many times had it
happened in the past?
Cleve Tatum chuckled at these
thoughts, because that seemed the sanest
way to treat them. He was finding a
new yardstick for them on the earth.
Hereafter he would measure it by
“periods of evolution following periods
of cataclysmic destruction,” just as
astronomers, stunned by the impossibility
of measuring stellar distances in miles,
measured them instead in light-years!
This led to one brain-numbing con-
clusion about what he was now seeing:
by being tumbled backward millions of
THE GOLDEN HORSESHOE
27
years into the past, he was also being
hurled millions of years into the future
of his own civilization — for he was
watching the yardstick of the past with
the growing realization that it measured
the future, too. All previous “evolu-
tions” had been destroyed, or had in
some way destroyed themselves when
they reached the place in their develop-
ment beyond which they could not go.
Was Tatum’s own “evoluntionary
period” to end in a like manner?
If this were likely, might he not find,
in the history of Tardan, some means of
averting that end?
This thought gave new interest to
his investigation — which until now had
seemed so utterly fantastic, but which
all at once seemed right, reasonable,
logical and to be expected. It even led
him to wonder how many “cities” might
be found, deep down in the earth, when
man came again to bore into her, seeking
wealth and knowledge.
AS HIS THOUGHTS ran on, his
eyes followed the pictures that unrolled
on the screen. Those machines — pon-
derous, huge, Gargantuan — were being
gradually changed as the “film” unrolled.
They became smaller and smaller. He
knew instantly that he was watching,
also, the evolution of machines. Watch-
ing how the brains of men were learn-
ing — or had learned — to do vaster things
with smaller mechanical means, so that,
at the end, instead of vast mechanisms
that did comparatively little work for
the power expended, there were tiny ma-
chines that did countless times the work
the vast machines had done — and even
these machines were a nuisance to the
Tardanians. Finally, they were set at
last into the walls of Tardan and sealed
therein — out of sight. Sealed with them
was the power to restore their own
broken parts, to repair themselves, end-
lessly — -leaving little for their human
masters to do save accept the fruits of
their labors.
And the labors of those machines were
many. They prepared food from the
sea, from the earth, from the very air —
food infinitesimal in quantity, but per-
fect in value to the human machine.
Those machines kept clean the streets
and houses of Tardan and lighted the
whole city. Those machines kept the air
sweet and pure. Those machines trans-
ported people wherever they wished to
go — though for some time Cleve Tatum
could not see how this was done. It
appeared that when a Tardanian wished
to call on his neighbor, he could do so
in pictures! Television — but a strange
supertelevision, in which the figure on
the “screen” simply stepped out, his or
her everyday self, off said screen, and sat
down with the person he wished to visit.
But how? Disintegration at home; in-
stant reintegration at the place visited?
Cleve Tatum could not find the an-
swer to that, nor did he pause to try,"
for the history of Tardan was unreeling
so fast that even when he paused for a
split second to think, he might miss
some vital portions of it. And the ma-
chines interested him beyond anything
else — for even before the truth became
apparent to him, it struck him that the
masters of the machines — to which those
masters had given superhuman intelli-
gence, gradually — had finally become
slaves of those machines. Certainly they
had, figuratively — for they did nothing
without using them. Tardan, when final
catastrophe came, must have been the
abode of the laziest, most useless people
who ever lived anywhere!
“Just so will we become, if machines
one day do all that science anticipates !”
thought Cleve Tatum.
So, Tardan became empty of ma-
chines. None were visible anywhere —
but only their activities — for all were
hidden behind the travertine walls of
the amazing city
Here that reel came to an end — and
Tlalak once more appeared, with that
sad smile of his. “Those machines will
28
ASTOUNDING STORIES
still be found behind the walls of Tar-
dan, my friend of the distant future,”
he said. “They do everything the mind
of man can conceive. They even think
as he does. Their secrets are yours for
the taking, but you are warned, of course,
that those machines brought about the
doom of Tardan’s people — so be careful
how you bring them forth and use them.
We were infinitely foolish; it may be
given you — and your scientists — to be
infinitely wise! Look behind the walls
now, if you feel that your race is ready.
But if it is not ready, better for you and
yours if Tardan were never to be opened
at all!”
A chill caressed the spine of Cleve Ta-
tum as Tlalak vanished. Tatum waited
a bit to decide what he next wished to
see, while his mind ticked off the won-
ders he had seen already, if Tlalak had
not lied : supermotion pictures ; air con-
ditioning; perpetual motion; machines
with intelligence ; self-repairing ma-
chines ; practically indestructible archi-
tecture— which had withstood the
mightiest of all oceans and the greatest
era of mountain building. Greatest era ?
Who could know? Might not the Rock-
ies have been preceded by mountains a
hundred times their height and bulk?
His brain reeled with that thought, and
he cast it aside as being, for the moment,
frivolous.
HE let his breath out slowly, pressed
another button — and his brain was filled
with sounds hitherto not even imagined.
This reel showed him, while Tlalak ex-
plained, off-screen, the monsters of the
sea. He saw creatures — Tlalak’s names
for them meant nothing to him — which
could have swallowed present-day
whales with ease. Water serpents of
unbelievable size and ferocity, which
fought other monsters, churning the sea
into froth over vast areas. And the
sounds of those struggles were mighty
beyond compare — as they must of neces-
sity be, because Tatum had nothing with
which to compare them, not even in
childhood nightmares. And when he
saw how the sea was crowded with these
creatures, he understood why Tardan-
ians were not seafaring folk! And he
knew, too, whence, in racial memory,
had come the monsters with which even
wise men of Columbus’ day had peopled
the seas not then explored. He watched
the evolution of those creatures, his
brain numb with the might of it.
Then he saw the creatures of the land
— before the sea covered Tardan. Cleve
Tatum gasped and blushed with shame.
For these creatures, though monsters,
little resembled the “reconstructions” of
them he and other scientists had made
from their fossil remains. In only one
way could they be indicated to present-
day men — and that was as they were
now being shown to Cleve Tatum him-
self. He could not even go back to the
outside world and tell people, in words,
or with comparisons that they would
understand.
In general, however, their develop-
ment followed the generally accepted
theory of evolution. When he was sure
of that much, he shut off the pictures of
creatures and turned back to man and
his development.
Here, too, evolution — as recognized
by present-day scientists — was proved.
For he watched man’s “footprints on the
sands of time,” as Tlalak explained it.
Hairy creatures, apelike, at first
He saw their single life, in the be-
ginning the breaking away from others
by the first manlike creature. Even
then, he wondered again how many
times this same thing had happened.
There were gaps, of course, for
Tlalak’s scientists, too, had had to “re-
construct,” and must have made ap-
proximately the same mistakes scientists
of the present era were making and
had made.
Then, the “modern” history of Tardan
— and here the record had to be true.
THE GOLDEN HORSESHOE
29
for this was the actual, pictorial record
— and Tatum had learned another thing
in which Tardanians were uncounted
ages in advance of his own “moderns.”
For these very “films,” or whatever
they were, analogous thereto, were
showing him that record, after the pass-
ing of untold ages — while filmdom of to-
day could not guarantee that any film
yet made would last more than a few
short years.
This film was a film of people. By
dozens, scores, hundreds, those people
came and faced Cleve Tatum. They
spoke to him as Tlalak had spoken. He
saw their faces, and that there was more
than one race among them. There Were
men who looked like Tlalak, and women,
too, who looked much like him. There
were handsome men who — out of that
film and dressed in modern garments —
could have strolled unnoticed on the
streets of New York or Hollywood.
There were lovely women, as fair of
skin as any Tatum had ever seen —
women with lovely smiles— smiles that,
so perfect was the pictorial art of Tar-
dan, seemed for Cleve Tatum alone.
-There were times when he almost
stepped forward, to take the hand of
some lovely woman. He scarcely no-
. ticed the clothing of any of them — save
that that of the women suited them.
There were children — and they gave
him food for thought. ' He waited with
hammering heart to see how far Tar-
danians had gone in the matter of
eugenics. Without absorbing too much
detail, it became evident to him that re-
production could, and did, take place
without any conversation of the sexes —
even from earliest times. Science, then,
had taken one of the greatest reasons for
discord out of the lives of the people of
Tardan! It was significant that none
of the records shown Cleve Tatum were
of war or bloodshed. Perhaps there
was, even, no love in Tardan. But
that could not be — with those lovely
women he saw — unless Tardan had dis-
covered something vastly more interest-
ing to its people. But what could be
more interesting?
Intellectual pursuits ? Perhaps.
Maybe even certainly, if one might put
it like that — for the brains that had
started the evolution of those machines
and carried it forward to what seemed
to Cleve Tatum to be perfection, had
certainly been brains capable of labors
only less mighty than those of the Crea-
tor Himself. Cleve Tatum thrilled to
innumerable references to the Deity — as
though, hearing such mention here,
proved His existence, which it might
well do.
He saw the evolution of a race, or
combination of races. He saw the faces
of many women he could have loved —
might even then and there have loved,
but for the fact that he kept reason se-
curely in the saddle. What good, lov-
ing women dead these millions of years?
The story of Tardan’s evolution from
the sea to the land — the long growth on
the land from unicellular creatures on
up through the combinations known to
all scientists, or at least believed to be
known by them — to man, then as now,
the apex. Man’s development, growing
intelligence, culture, literature — only
Tardan’s literature was pictorial instead
of written, telepathic instead of oral —
to the age of machines. The evolution,
side by side, of man and his machines
— the man growing less self-reliant as he
depended more and more on his ma-
chines ; his machines growing more and
more nearly sentient beings, if not actu-
ally so — until man did not even wish to
expend effort to operate his machines, but
created mechanical men, robots, to per-
form his labors for him. And after the
robots, machines which cared for them-
selves !
“At least we,” thought Tatum rue-
fully, “don’t have to worry about ma-
chines running their own shows just yet !
And still, with robot pilots, robots that
can talk, walk, think — maybe we’re closer
30
ASTOUNDING STORIES
to what Tardan was at the end than it
now appears. Invention accelerates,
alter a certain point, into a falling body,
or speeds up as a number grows that is
constantly doubled ”
THE EVOLUTION of Tardan had
been all unreeled, but now it seemed
there was more. The face of Tlalak had
never been sadder. “I’ve shown you
how Tardan became great, to the point
where it could, apparently, become no
greater. Now you will see how she
fell, and how swiftly.”
A new picture, tacked onto the story
of Tardan’s evolution, began to unreel
darkly. It puzzled Cleve Tatum at first,
because he could see no reason why it
began just where it did.
The city of Tardan — her people —
those people with smiles gone from their
faces — haggard faces Cleve Ta-
tum studied the city and the people,
trying to find the answer to the terror
that flowed out like an invisible tidal
wave. And slowly he began to get the
answer. Those people were rich beyond
the dreams of avarice. They were so
rich, even the poorest of them, that
wealth meant nothing. Nothing any
one wished was denied. He or she had
only to press a button or will a machine
to do it, and whatever he or she wished
was there.
“Nothing to strive for! • No reason
for ambition!” Those words exploded
in Tatum’s brain. He wasn’t sure
whether they were his or Tlalak’s; but
he was sure that they were the answer
to Tardan’s beginning of catastrophe.
Tardanians had nothing to live for;
therefore, they sickened and died. There
was no reason for them to bring into
Tardan. with which they were deathly
bored, children to be bored as they were.
That must have been the answer. For
in this reel he saw no children, though
he searched for them all through Tar-
dan.
The dead, he noticed, were burned.
He could not be sure of the manner of
burning. But he saw people die, saw
them dead — and saw them disappear en-
tirely through some action of certain of
the machines. Absolute incineration,
apparently. Score something else for
Tardan !
Dying Tardan — Tardan almost dead
— nobody left but Tlalak and some of his
close friends, companions — whatever
their relations were to one another.
Tlalak's voice came out of the screen
to Tatum. “We knew we were doomed.
But we knew we had developed a worth-
while civilization, one that we ourselves
did not deserve.' Perhaps some race of
the future might use it better. We knew
we must preserve it. So, the members
of Tardan’s council decided that the
councilmen would not be incinerated as
other dead Tardanians — but turned into
stone! We searched our most ancient
archives for secrets of corporeal trans-
mutation, which hadn't been used in
Tardan for generations. We found
them. Thereafter, as one of us died,
he was transmuted, cast into the sea.
It was our hope that some of us would
be preserved, whole, go into the silt, be-
come part of the rock — and be found in
that rock, as you. my friend, must have
found one of us — even myself perhaps,
since I have arranged that a machine
transmute my body when I die — and
come seeking the story of your find. For
only thus can you have found Tardan.
When I die, I leave this much of my
will to rule over the machines — that no
man. save one who has found a Tardan-
ian, and touched him, and understood
his meaning, however nebulously, shall
cast his shadow on the first door to the
city. Any other who approaches, the
machines will deter or destroy!”
What in Heaven’s name was Tlalak
so calmly telling Cleve Tatum? That
he, Tatum, had reached Tardan’s outer
gates by direct command across the
ages ? Tatum’s mind reeled with the
THE GOLDEN HORSESHOE
31
thought that such a thing could be possi-
ble. Was it? Wasn’t it? It was! For
what man could imagine, man could,
eventually, do!
Tatum, then, was here because the
man who now addressed him by tele-
pathy had given his command to the
city of machines he had left behind him.
That the command had been executed,
was even now being executed, was
proved by one simple fact: Cleve Tatum
was there in Tardan, ready now to obey
the rest of that command, however much
it might be.
Tlalak spoke again. “Now, my
friend, you are ready, if your courage
still holds, to go on into the heart of
Tardan — city of the dead, where only
machines rule— where even the little
mechanical men must long since have
destroyed themselves !”
Little mechanical men? Yes, tiny
robots. In the pictorial he had seen
many of them, without understanding
their nature or even guessing at it. But
now it came to him what they were, or
had been.
Those little yellow robots, that for a
brief period of time had operated the
machines, had been fashioned of gold!
It was strange how everything, at one
stage or the other, came back to gold
— which, of course, had been one of the
symbols of wealth in Tardan, until it
had become so plentiful it had been used
in the making of the little mechanical
men.
As Cleve Tatum rose to continue on
into Tardan, all of the vast panorama
of life he had just witnessed of the
ages, of worlds made and torn down
was suddenly dominated, in his mind,
by the golden robots.
Something of them, beyond a doubt,
must survive in the city. It was as
though his fantastic walk, down the in-
cline, inside the first door, through
infinitesimal “leaves” of gold, was a
promise that fabulous things yet un-
dreamed of would be found ahead, and
far below — even, perhaps, the fabled
wealth at the rainbow’s end.
V.
CLEVE TATUM ROSE, passed
around the pillar of travertine upon
whose face he had “seen” and “heard”
Tlalak, and moved down into Tardan.
As he went he tried to marshal his
thoughts, to set them in order from the
very beginning, bring them down to
date, with explanations to himself that
would seem reasonable.
His coming here hadn’t been chance,
then, but design. In only one way had
it been done. Dr. Siegfriedt’s miners
had found the fossil of the Tardanian —
Tlalak himself, or one of his com-
panions — and that, of course, had to be
put down to chance. Perhaps even the
fact that Siegfriedt had sent for Cleve
Tatum had been chance.
But from the moment Tatum had
examined the fossil, nothing that fol-
lowed had been chance, but design — a
design whose pattern had been planned
millions of years ago. Why, seeing the
fossil, had Tatum gone straight to Yel-
lowstone? If the hint given him by the
ghostly Tlalak were true, he had gone
there on something that might be termed
a scientific hunch, in the hope of finding,
in an area of chaotic formations ap-
proximating that in which the fossil of
the Tardanian had been laid down,
something more to explain that fossil.
Had he been sent? But of course he
hadn’t been sent to Yellowstone, for the
Tardanians had never heard or con-
ceived of Yellowstone. Yellowstone had
merely been on the road to Tardan.
From the moment he had left the office
of Siegfriedt he had been obeying the
will of that fossil, and hurrying as
straightly as possible to Tardan itself!
The thought was staggering, until he
began to reason on the basis of what he
had so far accepted of Tardan’s story,
32
ASTOUNDING STORIES
as told by Tlalak. There was the an-
swer. The fossil hadn’t become a fossil
by accident, but had been “transmuted,”
from human flesh to rock shaped like
human flesh — a kind of embalming.
Even as Cleve Tatum felt sure of
this, he wondered why his own so-called
“ancients,” the Egyptians, had not
thought of this manner of embalming.
Embalming was an expression of man’s
egotism, a symbol of his desire for im-
mortality. Yet the Egyptians did it
with drugs, herbs, and with materials
whose secrets had been lost for thou-
sands of years. Those Egyptians, along
with other oldsters, had doubtless sought
for the secret of transmuting base metals
into gold. Why had not the corollary —
that now appeared so simple — occurred
to them? Why hadn’t they transmuted
human flesh into imperishable stone,
-preserving the bodily form as long as
the rock itself. lasted?
For that matter; why hadn’t the Tar-
danians continued the practice? He
could think of but one answer to that:
disappearance of the desire for bodily
continuance, a dying of egotism. It
fitted in, too, with a Tardan who had
died of his own Vanished will to live.
Only Tlalak and his companions had
revived the old “embalming,” because
through it they wished to make contact
with the dim and incredibly distant
future.
Somewhere in that fossil at Sieg-
friedt’s would be found a bit of mecha-
nism — in the area where the human
brain had been perhaps — which had is-
sued a command to the brain of Cleve
Tatum, sending him to Tardan.
The command had been imperfect,
causing Cleve Tatum to stumble around,
seeking for a clue. Either that or else
his brain had not been up to receiving
the full command. Or more likely still,
whoever had cast forth that fossil could
not possibly have known where, in rela-
tion to Tardan, it would eventually be
found. The era of mountain building
had intervened between the casting forth
and the discovery. There was one other
possibility: that the fossil had been in-
jured; that the mechanism had not been
entirely able to constantly repair itself,
and the command had not been com-
plete.
Tatum felt strangely like bowing down
to the awesome intelligence of the bril-
liant ones of long-dead Tardan. The
greatest scientists of to-day were pyg-
mies compared to Tlalak and his
brethren. But, by mastering, as best he
could, the secrets of Tardan, and giv-
ing them to his confreres — or better still,
bringing those confreres here to Tardan
to solve the riddles — he would place the
brightest of those scientists on a par with
scientific Tardan.
Would it be anticlimactic to enter Tar-
dan, after having already seen it in pic-
tures? Tlalak limited him to go into
deserted, empty Tardan — to see for him-
self what it might mean to his. Tatum’s,
civilization if he gave the civilization
Tardan’s secrets before it was ready.
He was to look upon Tardan empty of a
living soul, to enter it solemnly, alone,
as a devotee should enter a cathedral to
pray for guidance, and to meditate.
CLEVE TATUM traveled a broad
highway which might have accommo-
dated and doubtless had, the feet of
multitudes — multitudes who hadn’t
walked here since the mountains had
pushed back the sea.
There was light everywhere through
the cavern that was a gateway to Tar-
dan. Indirect lighting? He puzzled
over that light for a time. No such
primitive things as incandescents or
globes of any kind — simply a glow of
light everywhere about him, which had
been turned on when that second mas-
sive door had closed behind him.
Now he came to the first buildings.
They were, as he had known ahead of
time, the columns which supported the
roof of Tardan. Inside the columns
THE GOLDEN HORSESHOE
33
were rooms. Doors led into the col-
umns, and Cleve was tempted to enter
the very first one, to see what manner of
people had occupied it, what kind of
business had been conducted in it.
But he did not, after some thought.
The building might well have been a
tomb. He stood and looked at it, and
silence beyond expression settled about
him. The first building in the dead
city! Through those doors had walked
generations of happy, laughing people.
Out of those openings, which were win-
dows, smiling faces had looked — out of
windows that never needed to be closed,
because no storms ever came down into
Tardan — bright eyes had watched peo-
ple passing to and fro in the streets.
Tatum stood at the beginning of one
of those streets — if it might be called
that — and looked down what seemed to
be an endless, glowing corridor, leading
farther and farther into Tardan. Not a
living thing save himself moved on it,
anywhere. A little fearfully, he walked
on to the first intersection. There he
looked right and left along another end-
less, glowing corridor. For a moment
he stood, musing, trying to picture this
place alive with Tardanians. It was not
difficult, for he had seen this very corner
in the pictures — what else could you call
them? — Tlalak had shown him. He re-
membered faces that had passed exactly
here, remembered tall men, lovely
women, passing to and fro, talking,
laughing — because they had absolutely
nothing else to do!
He had, he remembered, seen a man
fall dead at this very corner — and van-
ish instantly from sight — incinerated by
the machines in the walls.
He started, looked about him. The
machines! Where were they? Care-
fully searching, he noted that not all of
the massive columns had been the abodes
of people. Some of them were solid.
Now that he looked more closely, he no-
ticed that at least one in ten of the
columns was solid. Those columns,
AST— 3
without a doubt, were the abodes of the
machines. There must be thousands
of them, all through Tardan. From
where he stood he could see dozens of
the solid columns. He strode calmly to
the first one, intending to make a thor-
ough examination of it.
It was solid travertine, no doubt about
that. Putting his face close to it, he
began to look over the surface, all
around the column, from floor level to
as far as he could see by standing on tip-
toe. There must be openings, apertures
through which the machines ruled Tar-
dan. But he could find nothing.
“Damn it !” he said aloud, while
startled echoes of his words went rolling
away in all directions. “Why didn’t
Tlalak say something about this, give me
more of a clue ? I wish the fellow were
here, to tell you. If I could have brought
him along ”
Instantly, against the wall he now
touched, a picture took form. Terrified,
he jumped and, jumping back, gained
perspective whereby he could see Tlalak.
“AGAIN,” said Tlalak, “you justify
yourself. The machines obey your will,
and I appear here to explain to you what
you are sure to wish to know. The
mechanisms developed by Tardanians
are incased in these solid columns, in-
cluding this one against which I appear
to you. Note that at their tops, which
connect with the roof, and their bases,
which connect with the floor, the col-
umns contact the earth above and
below — all the earth above, to the floor
of the sea, and all the earth below. From
these two sources the mechanisms set
into the columns, procure whatever they
need that the earth contains. If it is a
piece of metal, needed by them for self-
repair, impulses — which carry with
them exact measurements and exact
weights of broken parts, together with
specific gravity of such pieces, thus auto-
matically establishing their metallic
identity — are transmitted either up or
34
ASTOUNDING STORIES
down, depending on whether the desired
materials are between Tardan and the
surface, or below Tardan. The exact
metal is taken from the earth, is molded
as it is conducted to its proper location
and fitted into place.
“If a man or woman dies within the
sphere of influence of this particular
column — either on the street or in one
of the buildings — the fact of death itself,
flashed to the machines, not by the men-
tality of the dead or dying, but by the
sudden cessation of that mentality,
causes the instant incineration of that
dead body. The machines, of course,
usually have warning, as death is ordina-
rily preceded by illness, and are pre-
pared to take care of the body. But
even in cases of instant death, with no
warning at all, the machines act — or
did act when there were living people
in Tardan. The impulse caused by the
cessation of a single intelligence reacts
on the proper mechanism — and the body
burns instantly, leaving no trace, and
with no danger to any one near the
dead !
“Near the top of this column — and all
other columns — is the machinery which
keeps back the sea by impounding gases
in the earth above, increasing their pro-
pulsive force countless times, then dis-
charging them into the strata above.
As a result, the downseeping moisture is
hurled back up through the earth, into
the sea — — ’’
“Into the sea,” repeated Cleve Tatum
softly. "And now that the sea isn’t even
a memory above, those machines work
on — forming gases which force back the
natural seepage through the earth, as
surface and subterranean waters seek
their natural level. The result is gey-
sers, boiling pools, hotly bubbling
streams — all the watery phenomena of
Yellowstone. And the very heat as the
waters come forth are proof of the pro-
pulsive forces of these machines!”
And wise men, on the surface above,
spoke knowingly of cooling lava far
down under Yellowstone — lava in which
gases formed slowly, periodically, finally
expelling the water through fissures in
the substrata with terrific explosions of
force! That was their explanation of
the geysers and the hot springs !
“Even so, they are partly right,”
thought Tatum. “They are right about
everything except the lava. Maybe
they’re smarter than they seem from
Tardan, at that — for how could they
possibly conceive of Tardan? And yet,
that fool on the veranda of the hotel
made a wild, fantastic guess that wasn’t
a guess at all, though lie didn’t know it.
Or did he know it, subconsciously? Was
he feeling, in -his brain, some of the
command that Siegfriedt’s fossil gave
me? Did the fossil — or the mechanism
which dominated him — despairing of
making me understand where to find the
gate to Tardan, cause that talker to
have a brain storm that gave me the
clue I couldn’t get for myself?”
TLALAK had paused, as though to
give Tatum time to assimilate what he
had already told him. Now he went on:
“In this column is a complete arrange-
ment of mechanisms. Every other solid
column houses a complete array of
mechanisms, also. Those mechanisms
were evolved for the purpose of taking
care of every conceivable need within the
area of Tardan served by a given col-
umn. That area could be isolated from
every other part of Tardan — yet go on
with its life without change, complete
in itself — for each column is the center,
the heart, the nerve headquarters, of a
little Tardan, a city within a city. It
is independent of all other headquarters,
self-fulfilling, self-contained and, of
course, self-repairing — since its contact
with the earth, above and below, is the
same as that of all other columns
“This isolation of little cities was con-
sidered necessary because there was al-
ways the possibility of individual break-
down elsewhere in Tardan. Some one
THE GOLDEN HORSESHOE
35
column might break or crack under the
power of some unforeseen force — the
shifting of a subterranean fault far below
it, for instance — and if all mechanisms in
Tardan were mutually dependent, Tar-
dan would instantly lose all the value
of her machinery.” Tlalak vanished
again.
Tatum decided on a bold experiment.
“I want a drink of cold water !” he said,
looking at the column as though to defy
it to perform this miracle. No sooner
had he spoken than he realized that his
thirst was a tremendous thing. How
would his wish be granted, if at all?
Would a genie come with water in a
golden pail? Would a fountain appear
in the street of Tardan? Would a bub-
bling spring appear before his eyes ?
To his vast disappointment nothing
whatever happened. Nothing? He felt
strange, a bit stunned — for he no longer
wished a drink of water ! His body felt
that glow of satisfaction which comes to
the thirsty man when he has just drunk
to repletion. No water had entered his
mouth. There had been no physical
contact of any sort whatever — yet Cleve
Tatum’s thirst had been slaked!
“Were Tardanians, toward the last,
so lazy they didn’t even want to open
their mouths, drink and swallow?” he
thought. “The answer seems to be ap-
proximately in the affirmative. But how
did I get that drink of wate’r ? Or maybe
I’m just imagining it. Let’s try some-
thing else. I am hungry. I wish food !”
No food appeared. Nothing, appar-
ently, happened. But Cleve Tatum was
no longer hungry ! Not only did he not
feel hungry, but he had the slightly un-
comfortable feeling of a man who has
eaten a bit more than he should !
Yet he hadn’t eaten at all. Whence,
then, had the food come, and how had
it been administered? The secret of it,
he knew, was in the column, amid the
silent, ghostly, superhumanly powerful
mechanisms which must pack and jam it.
“I vision whole tiers and piles of ma-
chinery inside that column,” thought
Tatum. “Yet it may all be done by a
mechanism no bigger than my hand or a
pea — or even something I’d have to use
a microscope to see. I’m afraid to know
for a certainty.”
TLALAK had said nothing about
how Tardanians were fed, how they
slaked their thirst. There was a reason
for that, of course. It hadn't occurred
to Tlalak — when he had prepared his
records for the coming of that wished-
for human, millions of years in the fu-
ture — that the manner of Tardan's eat-
ing and drinking would be anything but
commonplace. Tlalak had taken it for
granted that his visitor would know!
“Artificial feeding was known to
medicine — but how far would one have
to look into the future to visualize feed-
ing that was invisible, needing only the
will of the individual to bring it about?
It was fantastic in the world above, even
to hint of such a thing. Here it had
been commonplace! It was enough to
make the keenest brain reel. Had the
“water” he had “drunk,” the “food” he
had “eaten,” entered his body with the
air he breathed — so tiny that it traveled
on, in, or through that air he sucked
constantly into his lungs? Had he, in
effect, been bombarded with some in-
visible essence of water, some infinitesi-
mal “meal” of food?
He couldn’t even guess how it had
been done, but he understood exactly
why such a manner of eating and drink-
ing had been worked out. Tardan had
disposed of the vulgarity of filling the
human face and stomach where others
could watch. Humanity wove rules and
regulations, etiquette, about the neces-
sary habit of eating — but never, to Cleve
Tatum, had even the prissiest rules of
etiquette camouflaged the fact that drink-
ing and eating were the most uncouth
activities of humankind. Public tables,
filled with men, women and children,
opening their gaping mouths to show
36
ASTOUNDING STORIES
dirty teeth, stuffing those mouths with
food, chewing it lustily, swallowing it
Oh, necessity, of course. But
eating should be done privately.
So Tatum had always felt, believed.
He hated public restaurants, and when
he had to visit them, the countless chew-
ing mouths' about him filled him with
disgust, no matter how good the table
manners were — and he knew that his
own eating, chewing, must look as bad
to all those others, if they thought about
it, as the sensitive ones must. Tatum
liked to eat alone.
Far back in man’s history, man had
procreated as simply, freely, openly, as
did all other animals, then and to-day.
Mankind had evolved, however, until
love had become a beautiful thing, about
which singers fashioned songs, geniuses
wrote books and poets sighed at the
moon. Mankind had gradually over-
come most of his uncouthness, most of
his natural crudities— save the horrible
one of eating unashamedly in front of
his fellows!
“How was my thirst satisfied?” de-
manded Cleve Tatum, hoping for some
answer that would help. “How was I
fed?”
Could Tlalak possibly explain? Give
him an answer? An answer came, all
right, but certainly not as he expected.
For suddenly it seemed to him that he
' had taken another drink of water, eaten
another meal ! He could not mistake the
feeling. There could be no conscious
humor in those machines, nor was the
result especially funny. A wave of
sickness swept over Tatum almost as
soon as he realized he had drunk and
eaten again. His sickness was exactly
what a man might expect who, on a
wager, drank more water than he should,
and ate one hearty meal on top of an-
other. '
“I am ill,” he said, putting his hands
to his agonized midriff. “If my pain
could be eased, I’d never ask silly ques-
tions again!”
Instantly his pain was gone! The
sensation of having drunk too much and
eaten too much was gone. In his mouth
was a slight foreign taste. He tested
that taste with tongue and lips — as a
man might test the taste of an intra-
venous injection. He could not classify
it, but it had done the work, beyond
question. How? Therapeutic rays of
some sort? Medicine administered in-
stantly, as the food and drink had been ?
In only one way would he ever find
out — if his mind were keen enough to
solve the enigmas of the machines when
- — and if — they were deliberately un-
covered by the upper world of science.
Tatum walked on, marveling at the
immaculately clean streets of Tardan — •
streets that held no debris whatsoever,
except bits of gold in almost every con-
ceivable form. In some comers, where
buildings abutted, he foufid little golden
dolls, lifted them, shook them. Sounds
came through, and he knew that these
were the golden robots that had
operated the machines of long ago — be-
fore they had been developed to the
point of self-operation in perpetuity —
and which, when no longer used, might
have been playthings of Tardari’s chil-
dren. Gold was everywhere — long thin
leaves of it; thin pieces of it bearing
peculiar, incomprehensible marks, which
probably indicated that it had been used
as a medium of exchange. But what
had the Tardanians needed to buy?
Nothing they wished for was denied
them.
But stay, humanity must always have
had something to barter : land, buildings.
Maybe there had been gambling. What-
ever the gold coins had been used for,
this much became certain before Cleve
Tatum had penetrated a mile farther
into Tardan: Tardan had possessed so
much gold it might have plated its
streets with it, and when that was worn
away by the feet of Tardanians, replated
it again, and yet again — always with
gold
THE GOLDEN HORSESHOE
37
THE TRUTH burst on Tatum like
a bombshell. He shouted aloud: “Tar-
dan drew gold from the very golden
horseshoe Dr. Siegfriedt told me about
— for Tardan must either lie in the mid-
dle of it, or countless offshoots of it
must have been encountered when Tar-
dan was being built! Tardanians ex-
perimented with it because of its ex-
treme pliability!” And wealth, with
consequent idleness, had destroyed Tar-
dan !
The gold he saw everywhere now
began to fill him with terror. Its glow
seemed one of mighty malevolence. He
had the urge to flee from it, anywhere
as long as it was away. Yet as long
as he remained in Tardan, he could not
escape it. Indestructible in itself, it had
vanquished Tardan’s people- — and now
sprawled through all of Tardan’s streets,
as though to emphasize its power. It
was as soft as a woman’s hand to the
touch, almost — but nothing could de-
stroy it.
He walked until he was tired. Then
he sat on a bench, pressed buttons, lis-
tened to Tlalak and witnessed other
pictures of Tardan and her people. By
so doing he could almost people these
empty, whispering streets again.
“If you had a cure for tiredness,” he
said, yawning as he listened to Tardan,
“it would be a boom to civilization.
People would go on indefinitely. That's
an idea! I’m tired; rest me!"
He was not surprised at all to dis-
cover that he was no longer tired, that
he could, if he wished, run at top speed
through the rest of Tardan. He had
been invisibly “bombarded” with-
something that had banished fatigue.
When, after many hours, he was able
to estimate that Tardan spread under
almost all of Yellowstone, he felt it was
time to go back, confer with Siegfriedt
and decide what was to be done about it.
He turned, looked about him. He
hadn’t the slightest idea what direction
to take in the maze of streets — through
the packed forests of columns ! He was
lost in a labyrinth it might take him
all his life to escape.
He began running.
VI.
HE STOPPED short; running
would avail him nothing. He could
run until he dropped, and it would do
no good. He must not go into a panic.
Tardan, shaped much like Yellow-
stone, curved back on itself like the bend
of a horseshoe
“My Lord!” he thought. “A horse-
shoe! When people drive through Yel-
lowstone, they ‘make the circle,’ which
means that Yellowstone itself lies almost
in the shape of a horseshoe. Tardan is
shaped the same way, because but for
Tardan there would be no Yellowstone
— certainly not as we know it now. But
when Tardan was built, there was no
Yellowstone, so why was that shape
taken by the builders of Tardan?”
Again Cleve harked back to Sieg-
friedt’s talk of a vast “golden horse-
shoe,” dropped upon a segment of the
Rockies — a horseshoe so seeded with
gold that, if mined, it would make gold
valueless.
Tardan’s shape was not accidental.
Tardanians, before building their city,
had known of the golden horseshoe, and
had built their city in its shape — nestling
roughly inside it, as though the gold
might have helped to guard them. Had
he guessed wide of the mark when he
thought of gold as their god ? Had they
not literally taken the wealth of the
horseshoe with them — like misers? The
shape of the mountains had been differ-
ent, then, of course. They hadn’t been
high. But the gold must certainly have
been there, and they must have known
about it. They’d taken what they wished
of it
And in Tardan they had continued,
through their machines, to take of the
riches of the golden horseshoe. But
38
ASTOUNDING STORIES
they had taken too much — and Tardan
had died, leaving only its indestructible
shell.
Tatum must get back. There was so
much he must discuss with Siegfriedt.
But how to get back ? He remembered
the supertelevision he had studied under
the tutorship of Tlalak, and for the first
time he entered one of the houses of
Tardan — seeking just one thing; a ma-
chine that televised. That such a ma-
chine should remain intact, through the
seons, did not seem possible. For what
earthly reason need they have been self-
repairing? Nevertheless, he entered a
house to investigate. It was as light in
the house as outside. A bare first floor,
rock-floored, and rock-walled, of course.
There were stone stairs leading up to a
second story. That surprised him. He
couldn’t imagine Tardanians climbing
steps.
He put his foot on the first step. In-
stantly, the steps began to move upward !
Not surprised at anything, he chuckled.
He hadn’t been mistaken about Tar-
danians — they hadn’t walked up steps!
Cleve rode up on a silent escalator!
ON THE SECOND FLOOR, he
looked swiftly around. He wondered, as
he had wondered all along, why there
were no decorations anywhere, no rugs,
carpets — nothing that would seem to
have been necessary to make a house
habitable — just bare rock walls. There
were no beds, even. Had Tardan ban-
ished sleep as well as fatigue and sick-
ness? Or did people sleep where they
stood?
There were many questions still to
be answered. Corps of investigators
must make notes of their investigations
— and those notes would certainly fill
countless volumes. Tatum, at the mo-
ment, was concerned with just one
thing : getting out of Tardan.
He was hunting for a television ma-
chine. He saw nothing. It, like all ma-
chinery in Tardan, was hidden in the
walls — maybe not even in the houses
that used it. But there was a bench,
with buttons, and he sat down — facing
the wall where something must appear
— pressed the first button.
On the bare space flashed a segment
of Tardan — and Cleve Tatum knew that
he was looking into the room which had
been of vital interest to the last occupant
of this bench ! Had he, or she, gone
visiting — or brought some one to visit
him or her? There was no way of
knowing — nor did he recognize the sec-
tion. “I don’t know just how to wish
for it,” he said softly, “but I wish to
return to the bench inside the second
door.”
There was a swift blur — as Tatum
pressed the second button — and on the
bare space on the wall was the bench he
desired ! So plainly was it visible, it
looked as though he could go to it and
sit down. Was that how it was done?
Would he understand the “visiting” cus-
toms of Tardan if he did that?
Cleve Tatum rose from the house
bench, walked to the televised bench
and turned to sit down on it. He felt
a little silly; he fully expected to bump
his posterior against the smooth stone
wall of the house he had entered.
Instead, he sat on the bench he had
first occupied — stared at that first col-
umn he had seen. No mistaking it, for
to his left was that second door!
“Good Heaven,” thought Tatum, “it’s
like going through a door in ’Frisco and
finding oneself in a room in New York
City!”
He hadn't learned a thing, experienced
a sensation of any sort — save of surprise
at finding himself on that bench— dur-
ing the instantaneous translation. But
he wished to make one more test, be
sure this was the right place. He
walked to that door until his shadow
was on it. It began to open. He
stepped back until his shadow left the
door. It clicked audibly shut.
He turned around, and there was
THE GOLDEN HORSESHOE
39
Tlalak — Tlalak speaking : “I am Tlalak.
I bid you welcome. You have been a
long time coming. Sit down on the
bench to your right while I attempt to
explain our civilization to you, happy
at long last that it has not been lost
to the world ”
“Sorry, old-timer,” said Tatum softly,
“but there is a possibility that it has
been lost — for the mere thought of
bringing it in contact with mine fills me
with terror of the possible conse-
quences.”
Tatum moved until his shadow was
on the door again. It opened. Cleve
waved his hand at the ancient shadow,
passed through the door — wondering as
he did so, if, when the door closed,
Tlalak would begin again his introduc-
tion — if now it would go on to the end
of time. He would only know when,
and if, he returned to Tardan.
He moved quickly up the ramp to-
ward the first door. It opened as he
approached, again with a protesting of
what sounded like hinges needing oil.
He passed through. The door swung
shut behind him. In the slanting in-
cline he looked back at the door. There
was no reflection on it now — for the sim-
ple reason that silently, surely, behind
him, the outer ramp was filling up,
covering the door!
It was filling with rock that welded
instantly with the other about it. He
stopped. The filling of the cut stopped.
He turned, moved on a few paces. The
filling continued — in utter silence.
“The entrance,” Tatum decided, “had
been closed for millions of years by lava
— until I came. Then, by some mechan-
ical means — which started working when
I blundered into a certain area here —
the stuff that filled the entrance was dis-
integrated, or turned into smoke or gas,
and the way was open for me. Now that
same stuff, somehow held under control
above the entrance, is being allowed to
reform in the pit. In effect, I walked
through solid rock to that first door.
The rock was there, but rendered as un-
resisting as air, and as invisible. Some
terrific impulse caused it by explainable
means. Electricity? Some sort of rays
from the door? Will I be able to get
back if I want to?”
He turned deliberately, started back
for the door — and he hadn’t taken one
step, before the door was visible, the
ramp was visible
“Yes, I can get back, no doubt about
that,” he decided. This time he walked
clear out of the ramp before turning.
Then, when he looked, there was noth-
ing to be seen — save the wilderness
which was this unexplored portion of
Yellowstone.
HE STARTED eastward, forgetting
the boiling streams. He came to the
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40
ASTOUNDING STORIES
first one. It was a dry water course.
The need for it had passed! With it,
and the others, Tardan had captured
Cleve Tatum. Now it was giving him
up again — to return or not, as he chose.
It was still night, which surprised
Cleve Tatum — until he stepped, after
many hours, onto the steps of the hotel
by Old Faithful, just as the famous
geyser erupted. He stood on the steps
for a moment, looking at the majestic
sight. “If I tried to tell what really
caused you, old-timer,” he apostrophized
the geyser, “the world would put me in
a madhouse.”
A cry of dismay came from the
veranda. Cleve Tatum recognized the
voice of the man who had warned him
against going into Yellowstone at night.
“Where in the world,” the fellow cried,
“have you been since night before last?
Searching parties have been combing all
Yellowstone for you. The newspapers
have reported your disappearance. A
friend of yours from Red Lodge, a Dr.
Siegfriedt, is here — blaming himself be-
cause you were lost ”
Tatum waited to hear no more.
“Where’s Siegfriedt?” he asked.
"In the hotel. He’s an old man, and
the officials wouldn’t let him kill himself
by climbing all over Yellowstone ”
Cleve went directly to Siegfriedt’s
room. The doctor looked up, said noth-
ing — was neither startled nor surprised.
He simply waited, with a still look in
his eyes.
“Where’s the truck, Doc?” Said Ta-
tum.
“How did you know ”
“I knew you'd bring your primate,
Doc. It was written in the cards. Now,
we’re going to do something, you and
I. We’re going to destroy .him, piece
by piece, so that nobody else, ever, will
find him again. Come along.”
“But why — why ”
On the way to the truck, Cleve told
him, omitting nothing. “You see, Doc,”
he finished, ‘Tve made up my mind. I
won’t take the responsibility. If we un-
cover Tardan, we give the world to ma-
chines — and certainly we’ll make gold
the cheapest commodity, on the face of
the earth. I won’t risk it. We’re striv-
ing for the perfection Tardan had. They
died off when they got it, because there
wasn’t anything else to do. It is the
striving, Doc, that makes life worth liv-
ing. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’m going
to make certain — as far as it’s within
my power to do it — that humanity, in
my time, continues to live by the sweat
of its brow. It’s the only way to happi-
ness- ”
“Well,” said Siegfriedt, “maybe
you’re right. I’m an old man. I’ve
worked hard for everything I ever got.
But I was just thinking, waiting for
word of you, that I’d like to live every
day of it over again. I wouldn’t change
a tarnation thing!”
“Good. Get a sledge hammer. We’ll
get to work on the fossil.”
THEY DROVE the truck toward
Norris Geyser Basin, then off the road,
driving w’ith care. They made sure no
cars were coming, so no one would inter-
rupt them to ask questions. Then Sieg-
friedt uncovered the fossil in the back
of the truck. Cleve Tatum stared at the
thing for a long time. Tlalak? Proba-
bly not. Just the same, he felt a queer
kinship with the stone image.
Cleve Tatum struck the fossil in the
face with the sledge hammer. A crash-
ing echo thundered out into the night.
He struck again, and again, growing a
bit terrified that he might not be able
to break the thing at all. Then, it
cracked, fell apart. “A flashlight,
Doc," he said, tensely. Siegfriedt pro-
duced it. Both fnen looked into what
had been the skull of the Tardanian.
Nestling in its center was a metal pel-
let that Nature could never have molded
by chance. It was oval, of some metal
Cleve Tatum had never seen, nor Sieg-
friedt — about an inch and a half long,
THE GOLDEN HORSESHOE
41
by half inch an inch through its thick-
est part.
“What is that?” asked Siegfriedt.
“Did you expect to find it there?”
“I have a general idea what it is. I
expected to find something like it here.
It is a — a — call it a telepathic ovoid for
want of a better name. It ordered me
into the Yellowstone. It made you fol-
low me in. It is imperishable — and*
self-repairing as long as the fossil is in
contact with the earth!”
“I don’t get it ”
“It’s a broadcasting station attuned
to the human brain, Doc, and to the
machines in Tardan. The men who per-
fected it knew how to work it. They
were the original broadcasters. If we
knew how to use this thing, Doc, we
could rule anybody we cared to. Pretty
dangerous, don’t you think? I do, and
I’m going to destroy it ”
“But how, if it is self-repairing ”
It can’t move of its own accord. Let
it send whatever messages it likes from
where I’m going to drop it.”
“Where’s that?”
“Into the crater of Old Faithful. Let’s
slide this Tardanian into the first hot
springs we find, and then go back and
dispose of this infernal, everlasting tele-
path where nobody in our time will ever
be influenced by it.”
“O. K., Cleve, but what a story — and
this primate of mine sixty-three million
years old!”
“Sorry, Doc, but — Heaven forbid — •
maybe some of these days your mine in
the Beartooth Mountains will find an-
other one!”
He — alone — knew the story of life
from the beginning
MARINORRO
I AM sorry for what has happened
in the planet earth. I, Marinorro,
love it as a mother loves her child,
yet did not understand the reason for
human inhabitants until a short time
ago.
As man counts time it may have been
a thousand years, yet it is only a moment
in my life. I can not figure it as time,
but simply the period in which life can
develop in the lower stages. As man
views the development of germ life in
a few short hours, so I view the expired
time since my great discovery.
For ages beyond thought I have ruled
the planet. I have seen man develop
from an order of being which fought to
exist, to where he lives in comfort even
greater than I.
To him belongs the continents, but to
me the seas. The great oceans, which
roll and toss endlessly, are my play-
ground. The sea is my music and my
home.
Many times have I taken men to ray
home, to learn why they exist. But they
were failures. They could only live
under normal conditions and did not
survive for a sufficient period for study.
For ages my form has been too big
to travel over the hard surface above
water, so I brought men beneath. Now
I regret it. I could see in their eyes
that they loathed me, while I treated
them kindly. I understand their feel-
ings, but they could not comprehend
mine.
I first felt life in the dim past, when
the earth was new. I was the feeling
within the great mass of water. With
the feeling life instilled within me I
began to advance. I absorbed food to
develop my form and care for my brain.
All other creatures were without knowl-
edge of existence, created for my use
and pleasure.
Following the absorption of food I
experimented with other forms of life.
Many times I crossed the same germ
life, until I could follow certain trends
in their development.
From my work sprang every creature
of the deep for many ages. Then they
went forward themselves. They crossed
and recrossed, while I watched the re-
sults.
Many forms they acquired, all un-
knowing. At times they reverted, and
slipped back many stages, only to re-
build again. As the waters cooled, life
advanced faster. Advanced stages began
to seek other life without help or guid-
ance.
The first thought had been born in
me, and as time passed my brain in-
creased until I understood the movement
for every creature. I could guide them,
and help them in their search for com-
panionship. I brought mates together
who could not know there were others
of their kind.
I was respected and feared by all
living creatures. Some fled to far parts
of the earth to escape, but all the seas
belonged to me, so I brought them back
to punish them for their actions. But
they did not understand this punish-
ment and I stopped, to let them seek life
in their own way.
Soon they lost their fear, and came to
me for help. When they were sick they
sought me. At times I restored health;
at others I eliminated life to avoid the
spread of disease.
To them my breath was
death I exhaled a gas
foreign to their nature
by
Warner
Van
Lome
To man I would be a strange crea-
ture. My form changes to adapt itself
to my desires. I have legs that I once
used for travel on land, but the effort
became so great I discarded their use
and will forever remain below the sur-
face.
The stories of great sea monsters, that
mariners took home from their travels,
referred to me. I used to appear above
the surface to watch them at work, al-
though never more than once in the
lifetime of a man. No one ever saw
me twice. But my observations were
poor, and I could not decide why they
wanted to cross from shore to shore.
44
ASTOUNDING STORIES
I still cannot understand many things
which men do, but I believe they have
reason for each of their actions. When
I first discovered that man inhabited
land, I was surprised. I had not known
that life could exist out of water.
They were savage and would run at
me in great numbers, to die as they
came. To them my breath was death.
I exhaled a gas foreign to their nature.
. Slowly they learned to understand fear,
and tried to avoid me. Man was be-
coming a thinking being.
MY INTEREST increased. For the
first time there was another creature
who could reason. Previously I had
been the only thinking being on the
planet.
I fed my brain constantly. It took
centuries for me to develop a single
brain cell, while man developed with
each generation. I had to develop my
thoughts to conquer man.
At times I destroyed his civilization.
Qne continent I sank forever beneath
the sea. Now I regret it. I destroyed
man when he could not yet protect him-
self. There was no fight ; I simply con-
quered or destroyed, because I feared
competitive thought.
After sinking, the great continent, and
sending man back hundreds of genera-
tions, I turned to sea life again. While
I had watched man so closely my old
pastime had outgrown me. Life had
gone on developing beneath the waters,
without guidance. It took a long time
to learn of my own creatures, and I let
man work out his destiny alone.
. Great fish had developed in my seas.
Some tried to destroy me instead of
doing my bidding, but I stopped that.
.1 had more respect for man— he could
think. But my own creatures, without
thought, had no right to question my
. control.
It took time to make them under-
. sf?ind that I ruled, and must not be
bothered with their search for food. I
lost three legs in a. battle with one giant
fish, but I have many more. The fish
that bothered me the most, by his de-
velopment, was the whale. He had
grown to resemble me in some ways
and considered himself better than other
creatures.
When I found that he could live out
of water as well as in it I became jeal-
ous. So I left him all the equipment for
air existence, without means of using it
on shore. I destroyed his legs in three
generations, and gave him more of the
fish shape. That punishment he de-
served, for adopting my form.
For many generations he was sad,
but did not understand the reason. He
could not think, but simply knew his
actions were restricted, Slowly, he be-
came accustomed to the new form, and
seems contented now.
One thing about man I disliked for
a long time : he catches my creatures to
use for food. They have no feeling of
what takes place, but it annoys me to
have them hauled out of water on the
end of a piece of string. I have slowly
.become used to it and do not mind. I
eat them, and they live upon each other ;
but having outsiders use them somehow
seemed vastly different.
My greatest admiration for man has
come from the equipment used on his
ships. I have gathered decorations from
many of the more beautiful and used
them near my habitation. The pictures
of sea creatures are most interesting,
and some of them well done.
Much of their equipment is beyond
my understanding. They carry big
tanks of water, while their ships are
surrounded with water at all times and
they could dip up what they need on
board. I even found fish in a globe in
one ship. But I suppose that sea crea-
tures amuse them as men would amuse
me, if I could keep them alive.
. I start dreaming as I think back over
the ages and realize that I alone know
the story of life from the beginning. I
MARINORRO
45
think now of the time when I first knew
life, when the oceans steamed and I
could not hold solid form, but had to
he content with a semisolid existence.
What / am no one knows, not even I.
I have no counterpart or companion,
arid must live alone — unless? But I’m
dreaming again. Sometimes I think of
creating a mate for myself, by dividing
my brain and forming two new bodies to
carry me. This would create companion-
ship, but would set me back nearer the
lower creatures and well below man in
mental ability.
MAN does many things I do not
understand, but if I spent the effort I
could understand each of his actions.
If I could find out what man is com-
posed of it would be simple to know his
every movement.
Man could not understand my actions
any better, but would stumble along try-
ing to fathom the actions of a sea crea-
ture. I do not pretend even to myself
that he would understand. To him I
would remain an ugly creature. He
would treat me as he does whales and
other creatures of the deep. I would be
something to be caught and used for
any purpose he chose.
My present shape would be obnoxious
to a human being, yet it is more prac-
tical than theirs. I can do many things
that they cannot. I ean climb or swim
faster than any creature in the sea, and
one day’s travel will carry me across the
largest ocean.
I have compressed my form until it
is terrifically heavy, and will remain at
the bottom in the deepest water. .The
shell around my body is harder than any
metal man uses. It would be amusing
to see him try to penetrate it with one
of his bullets. It could not even dent
the outside surface, and would not bother
me at all.
To man I would appear more like an
enormous, hard-shelled worm than any
creature he knows. My armor overlaps
and gives as I move in the water. Twist-
ing back and forth gives me high speed
with little effort. This form I adopted
after centuries of experimenting with
every possible shape.
Beneath me are over a thousand small
legs, supporting my three-hundred-foot
length. They enable me to cling to the
smallest cracks, and travel in any place.
I first grew them for travel on land, and
have kept them because they were use-
ful. I can gather food with little effort,
as my main diet is vegetable.
My home is a series of caves that were
once part of the continent I sank. For
centuries I traveled over this vast land,
to see man’s workings. These were less
advanced than his present construction,
but to me they were great marvels.
It has been disappointing to see them
crumble in ruin and slowly disappear.
To-day there is little to remind me of
the splendor that once existed. The
buildings are gone, and all machinery
with them. At one time they stood
majestically for miles and I spent days
at a time admiring them.
In the cities there were buildings of
several stories, but in the country they
were all of one story. Three of the
settlements covered a lot of ground, and
housed thousands of people.
Streets were paved with rock to make
them smooth, for boxes on wheels drawn
by animals. Some of these boxes were
quite attractive and must have been com-
fortable to ride in. Many had covers
over the top to keep the sun from shin-
ing in.
All buildings that were not of stone
were destroyed when the land sank be-
neath the sea. Even the strongest were
finally toppled by the great currents, and
to-day lie as heaps of stone, where the
small fishes live.
One of the great buildings I could pass
through with my whole body, by being
careful not to rub against the walls. The
doorways at both ends were large enough
when I removed the wood frames.
46
ASTOUNDING STORIES
IT TOOK DAYS to examine all the
objects within. The upper floors I
could not pass through, so I removed
the stone work carefully and examined
the contents of each story before I
reached the one below.
The main points of history about the
human race were told by the objects.
Man had saved relics from his earliest
time, even stone implements.
On the floor above the bottom were
figures of people. Some stood in groups,
while others were single pieces of stone
or wax. Many of these I have saved
among those that were cut from stone.
One stone woman is still very beauti-
ful. I have kept her far from the wash
of water, covered except when I wanted
to see her. She has made me realize
how beautiful the human race is. If I
could exist in such a form I would be
satisfied, but that is denied me.
The human form would be useless be-
neath water, and I could not exist in-
definitely on land. I was formed in and
of water and my existence is bound up
with it too strongly to change now. If
I had known in the early time how much
more attractive life on land could be, I
would have chosen that.
Only beneath the sea is my power
great. I can control water, but land
is difficult to mold in any form. I only
control the action of a continent by the
use of water. If I sink one it is due to
the action of water. I can create cur-
rents that will do the work.
Aside from the stone woman I saved
little from the work of man. There were
many beautiful objects, but none that
could stand through the ages without
deteriorating. Perhaps men of the pres-
ent age would have liked to keep the ob-
jects that were destroyed, but they could
not be preserved beneath the sea.
As the ages wore away the buildings,
and the civilization of the sunken con-
tinent slowly disappeared, it seemed as
if my heart would break. I had enjoyed
the diversion for a long time, and learned
much about man. I had learned to take
a personal interest in what he had done,
although I had destroyed his work.
The work that stood as a monument
on this continent brought my first feel-
ing of pity for man. I could not destroy
such a creature without giving him a
chance to retaliate. Slowly I realized
what the trouble was. 7 was jealous!
Man had so much that was denied
me : companionship, community interest,
and a home that was not barren. My
own life appeared dreary and lacked all
of the feeling that man knew. I stood
alone in the universe.
I had only one thing that man lacked :
a knowledge of each and every form of
material, as well as how life was formed.
Alan was the only exception to my
monopoly of understanding.
It was simple for me to destroy the
human race. I saw the land form into a
solid piece on which man survived. I
knew the weak spots and where I could
do the most damage.
There is no continent on earth that
I could not destroy in a few centuries.
I can undermine the strongest sections
and break the weaker. My mind is
capable of creating or destroying.
Man dreams about the passage of
time, but he can not really understand
it. I have seen it pass. With the pas-
sage of time I have acquired knowledge
that man can never have. I have seen
him try, and fail, to do things which
were very simple to me.
He experiments with the action of liv-
ing cells, yet I know every one of them.
Man is made up of cells which I know,
but they are now in a different form
than any I have seen develop. Per-
haps I could create a creature like him
in time, but it would require many ages.
I would still have no way to develop
brain cells to equal his. My creation
would remain dumb. I have not suffi-
cient cells to spare, or I might use some
from my own brain and let them expand
with his form.
MARINORRO
47
I am very jealous of man. I look
at him as a lower order of intelligence,
but would gladly exchange. I would be
willing to die if I could live one life as
a normal human being.
UNTIL I studied man so carefully I
didn’t know what a tender sentiment
could mean. He taught me. I had little
feeling for any creature, simply a cold
delight in the results I could obtain by
using their ability to reproduce.
Yes, I crossed forms many times that
should not have been together, and
created many poor creatures. I created
life that did not know enough to seek
food, but had to be fed and taken care of.
These I let die, and have not tried them
again. Others which showed abnormal
intelligence, I destroyed.
I have enjoyed reproducing animals in
the sea that resembled animals on land.
The flesh of land animals is delicious,
and I try to obtain as many as possible
without too great effort. Recently I
have felt tired, and do not like to travel
far from my habitation.
It worries me slightly. Perhaps my
life is coming to an end, the same as
Once inside the globe alive, it
would be easy to carry them
to the dome — but——
ASTOUNDING STORIES
bvery other creature in the sea. I can-
not understand it, unless my body is
tiring to my brain. My thought should
go on through the ages unhampered. It
should never tire.
I can find no weak spot in my present
body; it seems as healthy as the day
it was completed, but I may have to
build a new one before my energy runs
too low. It requires centuries to make
it what I want.
I can date the feeling of restlessness,
as well as my lack of ambition, to the
time I succeeded in keeping man alive
in my own world. I learned to under-
stand him better and admire him for
his great courage and sympathy.
Three centuries ago I prepared a place
where I could keep man alive and study
his actions. It took much effort .and
time to accomplish, but was worth the
trouble.
For this purpose I built a dome of
clear material. I developed a small crea-
ture which did the work and had only
one aim instilled in its brain: to build
solidly and thicken the wall as long as
I desired.
I watched as the huge dome took form
and rose higher each day. My creatures
seemed tireless and kept constantly at
it. They even seemed happy at their
work, as if they understood that they
were chosen for an important part.
The foundation was several hundred
feet across, and the walls rose from the
edge at a gentle curve, to meet two hun-
dred feet above. The interior was less
than one hundred feet across, in order
to obtain the maximum of strength.
Inside I stored a great deal of food,
removed from ships only recently sunk.
Some of this food was in containers and
seemed in perfect condition. But I
stored a great quantity of fish (that I
preserved in my own way) so that man
would have ample food for a long period.
WHILE the dome was being con-
structed, I developed creatures to do the
other important work. The interior had
to be drained of water, aitd the air kept
in perfect condition.
It was simpler to develop creatures
that could suck the water, out, than the
ones which must create oxygen. The
giant valves worked properly, and
withdrew the water, even under high
pressure.
I grew cells that absorbed the salt in
sea water and left it fresh for drink-
ing. I had seen that man preferred it
that way, although I do not know why.
When I had cells that could create
oxygen in sufficient quantity to sustain
life, the great experiment was ready.
I removed some, of the creatures from
the dome and set them at another task.
They built a globe for transporting hu-
man beings from the surface. This small
sphere also had to have cells for creating
oxygen.
This task proved almost too much.
It was hard to build a small globe that
could withstand high pressure and not
be too heavy to transport.
• It had to be constructed so the open-
ing could be sealed in a short time.
Human beings could not stand pressure
to resist water, but must be protected
from it.
All work at the surface must be done
by myself. None of my creatures could
stand the light water pressure. Sealing
the dome after placing the human beings
in it I must do alone. This required a
carefully fitted section, water tight, that
pressure would seal in place.
I was taking every precaution to see
the safe delivery of my prizes. There
must be no slip. Several times I had
failed to keep them alive, but had never
taken as much pains to protect them
from the effects of the sea. It had taken
several experiments to find they were
sensitive to salt water and could not
stand submersion.
At last the day came for my adven-
ture. I was as excited as a small fish
with a big one chasing it. The com-
MARINORRO
49
pletion of my equipment had required
centuries, while the experiment would
last only a few years.
At the depth I stayed there was little
effect from sunlight, and I closed several
layers of skin over my eyes before ven-
turing near the surface. It was the first
time in years that my legs had been
used for transportation above water.
Although they were strong, my body
was as heavy as the heaviest metal and
as hard to carry.
I rose slowly toward the surface with
the small globe. My body was like a
huge metal girder wrapped around a
glass bowl.
It was night when I reached the sur-
face. The light was easier to stand
than I had expected,' although the glow
from the stars hurt slightly. It was
hard to breathe. The water was so light
I had to exert my strength constantly
to keep from sinking, and couldn’t ab-
sorb oxygen at the rate I was accus-
tomed to.
When I visited the surface before I
experienced the same difficulty, but had
grown used to it. This time it was like
my first visit. I was tired before I
reached land, where I could rest.
With my form half out of water I
lay dozing for several hours before I
had sufficient energy to go on. The
sun came up, and I suffered from the
heat. The rays seemed to burn into my
eyes and I had to turn back to sea. A
short way from the shore I settled to
the bottom and spent the day resting in
the water. It was only deep enough
to cover me, but I was worried about
my lack of strength.
Several times I nearly lost my small
globe, and jerked awake to save it from
smashing on the rock. It was more
fragile than I had expected. When it
was made under heavy water pressure
it was strong, but without pressure it
was much weaker. The material had
expanded. I was thankful the opening
hadn’t warped.
AST— 4
As night came again I returned to
shore, prepared to travel until I found
human beings to take back. I wanted
people who resembled the stone woman
I had saved so long. I knew there must
be some, although I had never seen any
as pretty. Most men had heavy growths
of hair on their faces, and their features
were not as well made.
As I dragged my form slowly out of
the water I began to be afraid. I no
longer had strength to travel on land!
I was condemned to the sea for the rest
of my existence, unless I grew new legs.
My legs had lost their powerful mus-
cles.
FOR A MOMENT I hated the hu-
man race, which could move around so
easily on land. They had everything
that I lacked. Then my thoughts
cleared. I compared their existence
with mine. I had knowledge they could
never have, and could grow new legs in
a short period of my existence.
They were tied to their bodies and
would end with their physical selves.
I would go on through the ages. I
could change my form to suit changing
conditions, and live when there was no
nourishment for other life.
This thought brought slight satisfac-
tion, but jealousy for man remained.
As I drew myself back beneath the water
I looked longingly at the green trees and
grass a short distance away. It was
beyond reach until I developed a new
body. At that moment I again con-
sidered forming a body similar to man’s.
For several days I roamed through
the sea before I saw any human beings.
Then* I saw a settlement on the edge of
the water. I had approached a con-
tinent.
It was dark when I drew near shore.
I could see plainer than during the day.
The water close to the land was not deep
enough to travel through and I had to
remain several hundred feet away.
During the time I traveled around.
50
ASTOUNDING STORIES
the globe became a real burden. I would
be glad to head back toward the dome
at the bottom of the sea. It would feel
good to sink into the depths again.
For two days no opportunity came
to obtain my specimens. Boats came
into the town and went away again, but
none seemed to have any one on board
who resembled the stone woman.
As I watched this night, three small
boats came farther from shore than
usual. The sea was smooth and they
were not afraid. I knew there was a
big storm coming, following the calm,
but they did not seem afraid. Slowly,
they drew apart and drifted of their own
accord.
The one which drifted farthest from
shore drew my attention. The girl
looked a lot like my stone woman, and
I watched for a long time. They were
too much interested in each other to
know I was within a few hundred feet,
although a lot of my body was above
water.
They were blowing farther from shore
all the time, and small whitecaps ap-
peared in several places. The other two
boats went back and still this one drifted.
All that disturbed the silence of night
was the tinkle of a laugh. I knew it
was the woman; I had heard the man’s
voice earlier.
Suddenly, the wind became stronger.
The boat began to rock. The waves
tossed it back and forth like a small fish
at the surface. I could see the man look
frantically around the sea. Even then
he did not notice me, but turned his
attention to getting back to shore.
He worked desperately at the oars,
while the woman huddled in the back
seat. There was no laughter now, and
I felt sorry for them. The storm was
coming up too fast to row into it, and
instead of gaining they were being
washed out to sea. If I hadn’t been
there, their lives would have ended. I
was not snatching people out of a happy
life, but simply using two people who
would have perished. There was no
chance that they might have reached
home alive.
Twice the man stopped rowing and
tried to comfort the woman. Both knew
they had reached the end. Then the
man started rowing desperately again,
as if to beat the storm by his strength.
I emptied the water from the globe
as I approached. This was the most
difficult part. Once inside the globe
alive, it would be easy to carry them to
the dome.
I could not reach over the boat with
my legs, to pick them up, so I tipped it
over. They sank for a moment, then
the man appeared, supporting the
woman.
For the first time they saw me ! The
girl screamed, and went limp, but the
man acted differently. He kicked and
yelled, as if to scare me away.
I curved around in the water until I
could reach them with my back legs.
The man tried to swim away with the
girl and I had to take hold of them. I
was afraid I would break them before
they slid through the opening in the
globe, but I didn’t. A little water
washed in, but there was still ample air
to breathe.
The man went limp as he was pushed
inside, but I did not believe they were
injured. They were simply terrified at
the sight of me.
A MOMENT LATER I had the trap
closed and the globe below the surface,
to hold it in place. My heart was light.
I was heading for home with perfect
success.
I could see them through the clear
surface, and was proud of the two people
I had obtained. They were both fine
specimens, almost as perfect as my stone
woman.
I had traveled a long way before
either one opened their eyes; then the
woman sat up. For a moment she
stared blankly, then caught sight of my
MARINORRO
51
body through the side. She buried her
face in her hands before looking a second
time.
When she realized the man was with
her, she picked up his head and stroked
his hair back. It was interesting to
watch. Each seemed more interested in
the other than in himself. This feeling
was different than any my creatures dis-
played. A moment later the man sat up,
and joined the woman watching me.
As we sank deeper, I was glad the
opening in the globe was sealed tight.
I could not travel fast, as the globe was
buoyant. It kept trying to rise to the
surface and required weight to hold it
before we reached the dome.
As soon as I pushed the globe through
the opening in the dome, I put the cover
in place. Then my cells went to work
to seal it permanently.
When this was done the huge valves
began to suck, and the water level slowly
dropped. There was not enough oxygen
in the interior to support the human
beings, but mixed with the air in the
globe I hoped it would last until the
cells could supply more. It would take
days for the water to be withdrawn, and
a great deal of oxygen could be manu-
factured in that time.
As the water sank lower in the dome,
the globe slowly turned. I could not
see the human beings through the double
wall, and had to waif for the water to
be drained out before knowing whether
they survived.
I watched constantly as the water was
withdrawn, and examined the surface
of the dome many times to make sure
there was no leak. It had never been
tried under the terrific pressure that was
applied now, and it worried me slightly.
I had allowed for the necessary strength,
but still there was a chance of trouble.
As the water sank, the small globe
rested on the foundation and began to
rise above the surface. There was no
way to release the human beings from
the sphere, and if it did not rest on the
side the trap would remain in place.
I wished I had built a dome which
could house my own body as well, but
that was beyond changing. My plans
must go ahead as I had figured for
three centuries. Even after the water
was gone I had no way of knowing they
were alive.
For two days I watched every minute,
but there was no sign of life. Twice I
thought I saw the globe sway slightly,
but could not be sure.
My body was tired after the long
vigil, and I turned away to rest with a
bitter feeling. With all the preparation,
I had failed. But I fell asleep from ex-
haustion, and slept for many hours.
The cave in which I slept was only
a short distance from the dome. A dis-
turbance caught my attention that drove
sleep from my mind. As I drew myself
from the cave I could see thousands of
sea people gathered outside the dome.
They did not even guess at the origin
of the human beings, but movement in-
side had drawn their attention. The
main thought in their lives was for food.
Life and movement represented some-
thing edible. Curiosity held them after
they gave up hope of reaching the man
and woman.
When I approached they scattered
in every direction.
I COULD SEE the man and woman,
and spread myself over the top of the
dome to watch.
At first sight they were wandering
about, arm in arm, examining articles
prepared for them. They looked the
food over carefully, and finally sampled
some of the things in containers. They
recognized it and made a meal from it.
When they discovered my form spread
over the top of the dome they turned
away in disgust, but a moment later
looked again. They could hardly believe
their eyes, but I knew they credited me
with the transfer from their world to
this, so far beneath the sea.
52
ASTOUNDING STORIES
Suddenly the woman burst into tears.
The man held her against him for com-
fort. It was a marvel to see them. They
showed an understanding of each other.
The man cared for the woman care-
fully. He fed her the tastiest bits of
food, while he ate other things ; although
she insisted that he join her in some
of the preserved goods.
I had put many furnishings from a
ship inside the dome and they used them
constantly. Some of the things I did
not know the use of, but they used them.
They constantly bent in the middle and
rested that way on the small soft things.
That action I still cannot understand.
If human beings are tired I can’t under-
stand why they don’t lie down instead
of simply bending and resting half up-
right.
A feeling that they had more in com-
mon than I had dreamed came to me.
They were together all the time and
seemed to enjoy everything better that
way than alone.
I had not put anything in the dome
to shed light, and they were not able to
see much. Everywhere they went, they
groped, although I could see perfectly.
However, enough light penetrated even
at that depth of water. They soon be-
came accustomed to it and could find
their way about without difficulty.
I wondered why they were able to
see my form at all outside the thick wall ;
then I remembered that my body shone
slightly in the dark. I realized that
without my form shedding the slight
glow they might not have been able to
see at all, but would have had to live by
their sense of touch.
They were far from happy. I saw
the woman cry many times. The man
seemed to hate me more and shook his
fist at me. I believe he would have at-
tacked me if there had not been so much
wall between us.
This surprised me. I had not be-
lieved that he would know I was to
blame.
A feeling of pity for these help-
less beings crept over me. I had
made pets of them for my amusement.
It was much worse than for them to
keep my fish in bowls. Human beings
suffer more. My creatures were almost
without feeling, while man had more
feeling than I. I had to admit they
were almost on a level with myself in
development.
I pictured myself held a prisoner by
them, watched every minute of the day.
I was ashamed, and would have returned
them to their former home if it had been
possible.
I left them alone for a long time, and
kept close to my. caves. I felt that I
should not watch.
If they had known enough to reenter
the globe and seal themselves within, I
could have returned them to the sur-
face. But it was impossible to make
them understand.
WHEN I returned to the dome again
they didn’t appear very healthy. They
moved slowly from one spot to another,
the man helping the woman. Her eyes
were red from constant crying, and the
sight of her bothered me. When the
man saw that I had returned he almost
went out of his head and shook both
hands at me furiously.
As weak as the woman was she tried
to cairn him. I was watching my stone
woman, in real life. I could see that
neither human being would survive long
under the conditions I had created.
I felt terribly tired when the full
significance struck me. I knew that the
human beings would have done much
better with me, if the positions had been
reversed. I remembered many things
that I had overlooked in the prepara-
tions. They needed green food and I
hadn’t prepared any for their use. This
alone would kill them.
The water which was manufactured
in a small hollow bowl for their use
might not be exactly what they needed.
. MARINORRO
53
, All ray cells could do was remove the
salt and leave the water clear. It could
not be freshened, as it was in the atmos-
phere.
From shaking his fist at me impo-
tently, the man turned to begging me on
his knees for some action. At first I
couldn’t understand what he wanted ;
but slowly the. realization that he. re-
quested death became a certainty.
■ ■ I could hardly believe' it. It was un-
reasonable for any creature to seek
death. I knew / could not seek it, no
matter what happened to me. Certainly
their feelings were a detriment, as well
as an advantage in life.
Soon the woman joined the man, and
both of them got on their kneees to gaze
up at me. Then the man motioned as if
to break the walls of their dome, Every
little while the same thing was repeated,
until I could, hardly stand it. They
sought relief from the life I had given
them. They considered existence in a
cage worse than death.
The life seemed to have gone out of
me. I found I hardly had strength
enough to move around. It was an ef-
fort to twist myself through the water
to my cave.
For a long time I didn’t approach
them, but stayed where I couldn’t see the
suffering. They could suffer so much
more than I that I could not understand
it. Alas, they must he able to enjoy life
that much more.
When I returned to watch again, the
woman was not walking around. She
lay in one spot. I thought she was dead
until the man took water to her. ,
This time my mind was made up.
They shouldn’t suffer any longer. When
the man got down on his knees to me
again I knew the time had come. Then
the woman raised her hands weakly to-
ward me to ask for relief.
Slowly, I slid my form to one of
the valves and moved it away from the
small opening. The water shot across
the dome in a stream that would have
killed the people if they were hit.
When I glanced again, and saw the
water slowly rising around their forms,
I felt sick. A moment later they were
both smiling at me happily. They were
happier at death than in life!
For the first time I realized how little
I amounted to in a great world. I was
nothing ; no longer needed. There were
greater beings than I!
Mankind, you owe a great deal to the
two people I took home with me. They
are greater than any of you who live.
Never again will I disturb man. He can
go his own way.
Perhaps I shall never reach the sur-
face again. My body is very tired. I
think I shall rest — and perhaps when
another age has come I also will know
the calm and serenity of death.
. I do not know — but the human race
has made me hope for it.
FOR GEM AND EVER-READY RAZORS
STAR TStwh
SPIRITS
• Your spirits rise when you shave with
Star Single-edge Blades. So keen that
they positively caress the skin! Made
1880 by the inventors of the orig-
inal safety razor. Only 10* for 4 blades.
Star Blade Division, Brooklyn, N. Y.
LOST in the
Which explains why Roger Bacon’s ideas were so in
advance of his time
by NAT SCHACHNER
T HE unnamed box canyon was
ideal for the purpose of Childs
Peartree’s frightening experi-
ment. It buried itself into the remote
reaches of the Peacock Range at the
western tip of Arizona. On three sides
it was inclosed by cliff walls that rose
sheerly to heights of over a thousand
feet. On the fourth side a corps of na-
tive workmen, under the direction of
Fred Walcott, his young, hard-bitten as-
sistant, had erected a stone barrier that
blocked off effectually all possible curi-
osity seekers, if any there might be
who would be tempted to traverse the
fifty miles of intervening desert.
For almost a month the perspiring la-
borers had transported by pack-mule
trains from the nearest railhead tons of
strange equipment, queer machines at
the sight of which they devoutly crossed
themselves and mumbled hasty prayers.
The canyon at best had an unsavory
reputation among the superstitious
Mexicans.
But the prospect of high wages and
the heartening presence of an obviously
competent and muscular young man like
Fred Walcott held them to their tasks.
They prepared the central platform, the
bases for the dynamos, the small but su-
perpowerful electrostatic machines ; they
helped set up the long blue vacuum
tubes, the spectral wave troughs, the
giant hyperbolic deflectors, the mag-
netic gravity-compensating coils, the vi-
bration dampeners, and other novel in-
struments evolved by Peartree for the
sole purposes of this culminating experi-
ment.
They also helped string wires over the
face of the precipitous cliffs, bringing
surges of power from the canyon floor
to the myriad reflectors that rimmed the
high edges and made an inclosed cup of
the canyon itself — a cup that would soon
fill to the brim with Peartree’s experi-
ment.
Finally all preparations were com-
plete. The workmen were paid off and
left most willingly. Fred Walcott they
could understand — he might have been
a young mining engineer, accustomed to
the outdoors, bronzed with much sun.
The girl, Anne Howard, was also ex-
plicable in a fashion. Perhaps she was
the old man’s daughter; she obviously
was in love with the younger man and
he with her. She was beautiful, they
agreed gravely among themselves, with
her bright-blue eyes, her hair that
shamed the sun with its glow, her firm,
oval chin and slim, straight body which
the whipcord breeches and white shirt
flaring at the neck set off with gracious
regard. Of which at least half was true.
She was beautiful, and the sparks
needed but the proper channeling to leap
in open flame between the young man
and the young woman.
But she was not old Peartree’s daugh-
ter. She was his secretary, his buffer
against the world, his assistant in the
minor details of the laboratory, and very
competent in all her protean capacities.
It was only at her own vehement in-
DIMENSIONS
Instinctively, he knew that the lambent sphere controlled
the incandescent column
sistence that the two men had reluctantly
permitted her to come along. The ex-
periment they were contriving was most
dangerous.
It was Childs Peartree himself, how-
ever, who excited the fearful regard of
the Mexicans, and was the motivating
reason for their haste in clattering away
immediately on receiving their pay. To
their superstitious eyes he was the high
priest of all these strange goings-on, the
only begetter of this fantastic machinery.
He was old and dried, like a leaf in the
fall. His hands trembled with impa-
tient eagerness; his hair was white and
and unkempt ; his eyes pierced them
with unendurable luster.
How were they to know that the
name of Childs Peartree had been a
power in the world up to three years
before, when he had voluntarily retired
from university honors to devote him-
self with a unified fanaticism to this last
and greatest research of his life ?
56
ASTOUNDING STORIES
WHEN the hoofs of the departing
mules faded into the silences of the sur-
rounding mountains, Fred Walcott
straightened from the final unnecessary
tightening of a bolt, swept a last swift
glance around the tiny canyon with its
towering walls and rimming reflectors,
said somberly, “I still think, Peartree,
this is no place for Anne. If the experi-
ment should succeed, the consequences
may be incalculable. Even if it doesn’t,
you’re setting loose some mighty
dangerous forces.”
The girl faced him furiously. “We’ve
been through that before,” she said. “I’m
staying.”
Old Peartree shrugged thin shoul-
ders. “You see, Fred, I can't do a
thing with her. And” — -he smiled one
of his rare smiles — “I don’t think you
can. either. Anne has a will of her
own. Besides, there’s nothing to worry
about. This central platform on which
we stand will protect us from harm. It
is shielded. I have labored the mathe-
matical equations and the areas involved
to the last millimeter.”
Fred shook his head stubbornly. “It’s
still a desperate gamble. Look what
you're trying to do. You’re attempting
to clear a definite segment of space from
all matter, all energy of whatever origin.
Such a condition exists nowhere in all
the universe. Even in the remotest sec-
tions of intergalactic space there exists
an infinite interplay of light waves,
electromagnetic surges, atoms and
molecules of matter, free electrons, cos-
mic rays. According to the latest re-
finements on Einstein’s original theory,
space time itself is but a function of mat-
ter and its concomitant, energy. Remove
the latter, and space time has no mean-
ing. Perhaps it even disappears alto-
gether.”
The old scientist’s eyes glowed. “Ex-
actly,” he agreed eagerly. “My own
formulae point to the same conclusion.
That is why I devoted the remaining
years of my life to this crucial experi-
ment, invented the machines that would
divorce space of all its attributes, even
the integral one of gravitation. It may
be we shall pierce the ultimate secrets of
the constitution of the universe.”
“More likely,” Fred avowed gloomily,
“we’ll blast ourselves out of existence in
the attempt.”
Anne said, with a certain amount of
repressed pain, “If you are afraid, Fred,
your horse is tethered outside the can-
yon.”
He looked at her a moment, his eyes
dark with anger, his lips tight and hard.
Then, without a word, he stepped upon
the shielding platform beside them,
pushed down with bitter strength upon
the master lever.
The girl started toward him, remorse-
ful. “Fred,” she gasped, “I didn’t mean
that ”
But it was too late. The die had been
cast, the deed done. The experiment,
for good or ill, was on its way !
Anne swung around with a startled
cry. Fred’s eyes widened in spite of
himself. Peartree leaned forward, shak-
ing as with ague.
AT THE down swing of the lever, the
conglomerate of machines had flared into
mighty being. The canyon buzzed with
a million bees. The dynamos whirred
and spun ; the tall vacuum tubes flamed
with multicolored lightnings ; the elec-
trostatic balls crackled and sparkled ; the
down-tilted reflectors on the cliff walls
blazed with unendurable stabs of light.
A huge rainbow appeared suddenly,
spanned the arc of the box canyon. The
spectral colors surged and eddied,
flashed with giant streamers to a daz-
zling brilliance.
Then everything faded, slowly but
surely. Gravity flattened out its warp-
ing contours ; all matter died within the
prescribed area ; the air went out with a
soft whoosh; parts of the abutting cliffs,
unwarily inside the zone, vanished into
nothingness. Sound and heat went with
LOST IN THE DIMENSIONS
57
them, electric impulses later, and, last of
all, reluctantly, light. The rainbow
gasped out its paling luster ; the moun-
tains disappeared from view — then,
with a final rush, the world seemed to
•come to an end.
Nothing existed any more, neither
time nor space nor light nor motion —
only a tiny platform with its still buzzing
machines, its three paralyzed occupants,
its puny shield of force that guarded it
from the enveloping blankness. It was
a precarious island in the illimitable in-
ane, a spot, of light and life and energy
in a frozen nothingness.
The experiment had been a success !
Anne clung suddenly to the tall, lean
young man at her side. All her valor
was gone. This was more terrible than
anything she had imagined. “Fred,”
she whispered, “I’m — afraid.”
He might have retorted on certain bit-
ing phrases she had used, but he was
beyond irony. He held a sickish feeling
within him. Suppose what Peartree had
done was beyond redemption. Suppose
tire process were irreversible, in spite of
his confident assurances to the contrary.
Suppose they were marooned forever on
their island platform, doomed to await
a slow and horrible death. The air that
beat within the inclosing shield of force
could last at the uttermost for a few
hours.
Beyond that rjm he could see noth-
ing. It was black with a blackness be-
yond all human conceiving. No tiniest
ray of light could penetrate that pro-
found void, no faintest wave of energy
stirred in those moveless depths. They
were cut off from the rest of the world,
from the universe of familiar things,
more effectually than if they had been
suddenly transported to the remotest
galaxy. The thought stopped his heart,
thickened his blood. He knew that a
hundred yards to either side Earth still
existed — matter, sunshine, heat, energy.
But no life, no matter, no wave motion,
could traverse that paltry distance. It
was the perfect vacuum, the utter non-
being that no human mind had hereto-
fore conceived.
Childs Peartree’s voice rose startlingly
in the stillness. It was curiously bitter
with disappointment. “Damn !” he said.
“It’s only a vacuum. I have emptied
space, but the fundamental stuff of space
time still exists.” He sighed wearily.
“All my theories were wrong. My life
work' has collapsed.”
Fred stared around that inclosing wall
of blankness. “How do you know space
time exists out there?”
“Because,” the old scientist retorted
with asperity, “my equations call for no
such thing as this featureless void. They
demand, in fact, the appearance of a new
space time. On the removal of our
familiar four-dimensional continuum we
should have been transported into a dif-
ferent series. I had hoped that we
might even find a new universe, a new
life, in that ultra-dimensional continuum
beyond our own.”
“Good Lord!” Fred cried. “You
never told us ; I never dreamed
Peartree averted his gaze. “You
might have backed out if I had,” he
mumbled. “And I needed your help,
and the help of Anne.”
Fred was appalled: He had known
that Peartree was ruthlessly fanatic in
the name of science, but not to this ex-
tent. In the furtherance of his experi-
ments he had been willing to sacrifice %
not only his own life, but the lives of
others. Transportation to another di-
mensional space indeed ! A trip from
which there would have been no return-
ing. Not, he told himself carefully, that
he would have held back if the truth
had been divulged to him; but to bring
Anne along!
Peartree saw the gathering thunder-
cloud, spoke hastily. “It does not matter
now. I have failed. You may as well
reverse- the lever, stop the machines, I
can study this silly phenomenon I have
accomplished,” he continued with quiet
53
ASTOUNDING STORIES
bitterness, “in the private recesses of my
laboratory. I did not need all this
space.”
Unaccountably, Anne Howard was at
his side. Her slender arm patted his
drooping shoulder. “Please don’t
despair,” she begged. “Perhaps you
didn’t evacuate space completely. There
may be a tiny flaw in your calculations
that can be rectified. And next time”
— she threw a defiant glance at the
young man — “you can count on me to go
along with you — even into that ultra-
dimensional universe.”
FRED caught hold of the lever sav-
agely. Just like a woman, he raged.
She chose deliberately to misunderstand
his motives, the reason for his obvious
anger. Very well, then. His grip tight-
ened; he started to swing upward. Al-
most he hoped, and cursed himself for a
fool in so hoping, that there could be no
return.
Halfway toward the locking notch,
however, his fingers froze.
Out of the impenetrable black that
surrounded them, hurtling into the field
of warm illumination, materializing on
the farther bare-swept end of the plat-
form with not the tiniest thud, was a
hive-shaped structure of gleaming
crystal.
Two men stood within its shining
depths, two men of strange demeanor
and stranger costumes. The older one’s
brown, skinny hand clutched with des-
perate grip at a tiny sphere that writhed
like a snake over a central column of in-
candescence. He was old and worn,
with gray locks and peppered beard.
His face was lean and hawklike, his nose
long and narrow, his lips bitter-bitten.
Lines of harsh experience etched his
forehead and hollowed his cheeks. A
gray single garment ■ enveloped his spare
body, held around the middle by a woven
cord. Dusty sandals shod his bare feet.
His companion was much younger, a
mere lad, in fact. Light-brown ringlets
framed his rounded, smooth-skinned
face. A leather, tight-fitting jerkin, long,
brown stockings up to leather breeches,
and pointed shoes completed his attire.
They had not seen the platform upon
which they had dropped out of the void ;
they had not noted the startled oc-
cupants thereon. Their heads were
twisted backward over their shoulders,
toward the featureless space from which
they had emerged; and old eyes and
young alike held a desperate, haunted
terror. The lean fingers crawled over
the sphere, started to twist.
Fred jerked out of his reverie,
lunged forward with a shout. In-
stinctively, he knew that the lambent
sphere controlled the incandescent col-
umn, that a further twist would send
the strange mechanism catapulting from
their world into the night of other space
from which it had come. Peartree’s ex-
periment had been only too successful.
The youngster whirled on his pointed
toes at the shout. There was a dread-
ful fear in his eyes. Then they widened
in mutual amazement. He cried out
sharply to the older man.
The gray-garmented one’s hand trem-
bled irresolutely, fell away from the
orbed control. He swung and stared.
Peartree said very rapidly to himself,
“Oh, my Lord !”
Anne cried out, “Fred, come back!
They may mean harm !”
BUT Fred Walcott feared no man or
beast, though they had come like plum-
mets from another world. He sprang
close to the hive-shaped crystal. It
was of a material he had never seen; it
was not of earth. He cupped his hands,
shouted, “Do not be afraid. We are
friends !” Then, suddenly, he felt sheep-
ish. What would these strange visitants
know of English?
Wonder filled the old man’s face to
the brim. The dread vanished from his
eyes. “A miracle! A miracle, O John,
son of Dominick!” he said hoarsely.
LOST IN THE DIMENSIONS
59
“These are men like ourselves ; they
speak our own patois of England.”
The lad crossed himself devoutly.
“Yet they are fantastically dressed,” he
objected. “It is incredible, master, that
we could have returned. It is but an-
other enchantment of the arch enchanter,
Mardu — the foul fiends seize and rend
him limb from limb.”
“John, son of Dominick,” the old man
returned severely, “how often have I
told you that Mardu is no enchanter,
that he is the fiend himself, come from
a hell beyond the seven crystalline
spheres ; that Heaven itself knows
naught of him.”
Childs Peartree merely gaped. He
was beyond words.
Anne firmed her slender shoulders,
pushed herself by a feat of will to Fred’s
side. “Are you sure we are not dream-
ing?” she whispered in scared accents.
The young man clenched sweaty
palms. “That,” he said harshly, “is the
speech and dress of medieval England.”
He stared at the older man, at his
gray garment, and the sweat broke out
on his forehead also. “Anne!” He
gripped her arm. “There was only one
man in all that time who could have
” He broke off, raised his voice.
“Who are you?” he shouted. “What
are your names and where do you come
from?”
The old man said quietly : “If ye be
in truth what ye seem, then are we
rescued from Mardu and a doom more
dreadful than any mortal could have en-
compassed. My name is only too
familiar, stranger. I am Roger Bacon,
Friar of the Franciscan Order, and this
is my trusty lad and assistant, John, son
of Dominick. But tell me, who are you,
and what means this queer platform and
its curious apparatus that partakes of
the alchemical?”
Fred groaned. "I was afraid of this,
Peartree. You succeeded beyond your
dreams. You broke down the wall of
space time that surrounded us, and
somehow switched Roger Bacon from
thirteenth-century England into our
day and age.”
The scientist was a taut, quivering
bow. “Roger Bacon!” he repeated
huskily. “The greatest of the medieval
scientists! The man who prophesied
the airplane, the automobile, the tele-
scope. By Heaven, there is more to
this than a mere transposition, Fred !
No wonder he knew so much. He had
discovered the secret of time travel.” He
gesticulated frantically. “Bacon, come
out ! We have heard of you, but not as
you think. Your name appears in his-
tory as the first modern.”
The Friar’s eyes were puzzled. “In
history?” He pondered the phrase. “In
truth have we been so long gone that
we are deemed dead?”
“A mere matter of over six hundred
years,” Peartree assured him. “This is
1937 Anno Domini, and this land is
America, wholly unknown in your own
time.”
John, the son of Dominick, fell on his
knees and prayed fervently. “This,” he
cried despairingly, “is the foul Mardu! s
revenge. I shall never see my own
peaceful village again, with the fat kine
wandering by the stream, nor the yel-
low locks and impish smile of Catherine
that is like to tear my heart straight
from the body.”
“Hush your idle prating,” Roger Ba-
con said severely. “This is matter we
must understand.” He twisted the
squirming ball slightly. The central
column flared to purple hue. The wall
of the crystal inclosure seemed to van-
ish. He gathered his long gray robe of
the Franciscans about him, padded out
on sandaled feet. The lad followed more
reluctantly.
“Now explain,” he demanded with a
philosophic calm.
THEY DID, Childs Peartree and
Fred and Anne, with quick, staccato
phrases and hurried words. Much of it
ASTOUNDING STORIES
was obviously beyond the comprehen-
sion of the medieval man — space time,
divorcement from matter and energy,
warps, Einsteinian universe, modern
geography and civilization.
But Friar Bacon seized on ultra-
dimensional theory, nodded his head.
“Of that,” he declared with somber em-
phasis, while young John shivered, “I
know much. We have been through
many dimensions, beyond the crystalline
spheres themselves, seeking escape from
Mardu, seeking always a return to my
own prison cell.”
Then he explained.
“My story,” he avowed, “is a strange
one, even as this marvelous tale of
yours. Because of my ponderings on
alchemy, because of searchings into the
things of nature, and not of Aristotle,
Bonaventura, General of the Fran-
ciscans. placed me under surveillance in
the Chapter of Paris. But in my cell,
through the aid of this lad, John, son
of Dominick, and the secret benevolence
of one or two of the good Friars, I con-
tinued my experiments.”
He stared at the banked instruments
on the platform in frank puzzlement. “I
know not how it happened. But some-
thing I did, or some combination of
things, brought a void about myself and
John even as this. We trembled. We
trembled even more when this curious
contrivance” — he indicated the hive-
shaped traveler — “broke suddenly
through the veil, precipitated itself at
our feet. It held a demon within, black
and hideous beyond conception.”
“Satan himself,” John muttered and
crossed himself in fear.
“Perhaps,” the Friar agreed. “We
never were able to discover the truth.
He spoke to us only in signs. Never-
theless, it seemed he had come from a
distant place, beyond the heavens them-
selves, and there were more of his kind
in that far-off land.”
“A dweller in an ultra-dimension,”
Peartree breathed with repressed ex-
citement.
“I have seen many such” — Bacon
nodded — “but not such as he. But to
continue. He treated us with manifest
contempt, as if we were worms too poor
for his feet to crush. He quit his shin-
ing conveyance, prowled around my cell,
fingered my retorts and crucibles as
though they were mere childish play-
things.”
“And all the while,” the boy inter-
jected, “I groveled in an agony of dread
for my immortal soul.”
Roger Bacon smiled. “I feared not
for that.” he said. “But there was an
arrogant cruelty about the demon that
minded me we would not escape alive
from his clutches. I was not prepared
to die. Furthermore, I always was of
a mechanical, foolishly daring bent. I
had noted what the black creature had
done with the little gleaming 'sphere
when he slowed down and thrust open
the wall. I was sorely tempted.
“Even as he turned, having sated his
curiosity on the poor contents of my
cell, I thrust John, son of Dominick,
headlong into the cage, sprang after.
There was a huge cry — a scream not of
this Earth — filled with a fury and venom
that are indescribable. Flame shot for-
ward toward me. I verily believe had it
touched my body I would have crisped
to a tiny cinder. But already my hand
was on the hovering sphere. I twisted it
desperately. Even as the flame darted
out, the crystal wall misted over; the
cell and its howling occupant disap-
peared, and we were enfolded in unut-
terable darkness.”
HIS HAND shook as it wiped his
forehead. His head turned uneasily to-
ward the surrounding void. “What
happened after is a hideous nightmare.
I mastered somewhat the control of the
gleaming ball. At times we found our-
selves unawares on worlds beyond our
LOST IN THE DIMENSIONS
61
Then — like an
evanescent
note in a beam
of sunshine —
they vanished
into the illim-
itable inane.
knowledge. One was red in color,
parched and drear. Great canals tapped
the water through the deserts. But the
inhabitants drove us off with hurtling
lightning bolts.”
Fred breathed hard.. “Mars!” he
whispered. .
"Then night, inclosed us again. When
it cleared, our conveyance tossed as
though it were a feather in a seething
cauldron of flame and fury. Another
instant and we had been molten specks.
But luckily, in the last gasp, I turned
the ball.”
Peartree shook violently. “Good
Lord ! They must have broken through
space into the Sun!”
Roger Bacon said gravely: “I kno\y
02
ASTOUNDING STORIES
hot where it was, unless it were in hell
itself. But then, as the black mist light-
ened again, we were in a world of nietal.
There was neither up nor down, nor side
to side. Everything revolved and
writhed and contorted in ever-changing
shapes. Monstrous things hemmed us
in, all of metal angles, and they shifted
and retracted shapes and size even as we
watched aghast. They were not human,
yet they seemed endowed with life,
Heaven forgive me for the sacrilege.”
“It was there that Mardu caught up
with us,” said John.
“But how could he?” Anne protested.
“You were in a different dimension ; you
had left him stranded back in thirteenth-
century France.”
“He had built himself another con-
veyance,” the Friar explained. “Per-
haps there were materials in my labora-
tory he could use. Yet it was our sal-
vation that the crude materials of our
world are not like the subtle elements
he employed in this first incandescent
column. What he made up in skill, he
lost in the greater efficacy of the ship we
stoic. Nevertheless, he almost got us.
We hurled ourselves into the void be-
tween the dimensions just in time.
‘Mardu!’ he shouted after us in an ec-
stasy of rage. Whether that be a tre-
mendous curse, we know not. We have
called him ever since by that word.”
“But if you lost him,” Anne pro-
tested, “why were you so dreadfully
afraid when you broke through to us?”
Friar Bacon smiled sadly. “We did
not lose him. Always has he been on our
trail. In universe on universe he follows
us, like a hunting dog nosing a hare, like
a falcon winging a drumming partridge.
And always we escape by the merest
hairbreadth, because our shining ball
turns faster, our central shaft of flame
is more subtle in its workings.”
“He will catch us yet, master,” the
boy said with conviction.
The Friar’s eyes darkened. “Never!”
he affirmed with sudden energy. “Know
ye, sirs and lady,” he addressed the
three, “this chase has been the greatest
since Michael and his angels pursued
the devilish hordes through tumbling
chaos to hell. We have seen worlds
and sights beyond the power of mortal
tongue, we have been in places that
Heaven itself knows nothing of ; yet al-
ways we try to return to our own cozy
time and the pleasant Earth with which
we are familiar.” His face saddened.
“For the moment I thought that we had
succeeded.”
“Stay with us,” Fred advised. “This
is the nearest approach you may ever
get. And once I reverse this lever and
dissipate the ultra-void with which we
have surrounded ourselves, you will be
safe from Mardu, your pursuer. There
will be no break in our space time for
him to span.”
“And I,” Childs Peartree spoke up
suddenly, “will utilize that strange ma-
chine of yours for purposes of my own.”
“What purposes?” Fred demanded
sharply.
The scientist’s eyes were burning
torches. “Why, to visit these vast other
dimensions of which they speak, to sur-
vey all universes entire, to seek the se-
cret of creation at its very source. What
nobler, greater task 'has ever awaited
mortal man?”
“But you will never return,” cried
Anne.
“Bah! I do not wish to. Earth is
but a small, dusty ball after all.”
“You forget,” said Fred quietly,
“Mardu!”
“I’ll chance him,” Peartree retorted,
and started for the conveyance of shim-
mering crystal with its shining inner
column of flame.
Fred jumped after him with a curse.
He'd save the old fanatic from the con-
sequence of his reckless enthusiasm by
forcible means if necessary.
But it was John’s terrible cry that
LOST IN THE DIMENSIONS
63
stopped them both dead in their tracks.
Fred whirled. His hand streaked to
his belt, where a .38 Colt fitted snug in
a holster. It was too late !
OUT of the Stygian nothingness that
surrounded their platform like a shore-
less sea, another hive-shaped vehicle had
materialized — a twin to the one in which
Friar Bacon and the lad John had come.
But it was cruder in material and work-
manship. Even in that split second
Fred noted that clumsy glass, cleverly
welded into a single sheet, was its cov-
ering. The column by which it man-
euvered through the dimensions seemed
of fused Earthern crucibles, inclosed in
a vacuum sheath of glass. Its glow
was duller, more subdued.
The vessel had floated to rest on the
farther end of the platform. Its exterior
shimmered wide, and a black figure
glided forth— a being shaped like a man,
though taller, dark as the void from
which he had sprung. His face was
pointed and elongated like one of Mo-
digliani’s painted creatures. His feet
were clubbed and toeless. His eyes
were slanting slits, and they flamed with
furious fires.
“ Mardu !” he screeched in a thin, eerie
voice.
John, the son of Dominick, had fallen
to his knees. “Domine, salve!" he
shrieked. Roger Bacon pulled his cloak
about his head, bent to the expected
blast of extinction. Anne, close to the
lever, seemed turned to stone.
Mardu, denizen of a strange dimen-
sion, saw Fred’s swift motion. He saw
the jerked-out muzzle of the gun. There
was cold cruelty in his face, but there
was also intelligence. He had never
seen a gun before; his own weapon was
a blast of energy built up out of space
potential. Yet he knew that this in-
ferior creature of a lesser world held a
certain power of destruction. It might
leap the intervening space before he
could raise his hand. He took no
chances.
With another screech he leaped. His
long, boneless arms wrapped suddenly
about the motionless girl. She screamed,
struggled. But he was too powerful.
Even as Fred leveled his gun despair-
ingly, crashed forward to the rescue,
Mardu had darted back into his vehicle,
using Anne as a shield. From behind
her squirming form his black, unjointed
hand curled around the little ball.
Fred shot, directly for the glowing
column.
The roar of the gun echoed deafen-
ingly around the limited closure; smoke
spumed from the muzzle. But the
pointed dimension traveler was gone,
catapulted into the circumambient void.
And Anne and her captor, Mardu, had
vanished with it.
Old Peartree stirred weakly. “He
has taken Anne,” he mumbled in a
daze.
But Fred wasted no time. Grim-
lipped, jaw tight with corded muscles,
he whirled to the astounded Friar.
“Quick!” he rasped. “Into the other
machine ! We’re going after him.”
Roger Bacon lowered his muffling
robe. He made a gesture of utter fu-
tility. “But how can we?” he asked.
“Already he is lost among the count-
less worlds.”
“There must be a way,” Fred said.
“He managed to follow you, didn’t he?”
John, son of Dominick, staggered to
his feet. He shook with fear. “He will
kill you,” he cried. “He is Satan him-
self. His arm flashes lightnings.”
Fred patted his holster grimly. “I,
too, can flash lightnings on occasion.
But this is no time to argue. We’ve got
to make haste.”
The thought of Anne, with her slim,
pliant body, her bright, blue eyes, car-
ried off by an alien creature into the un-
imaginable intervals of space time, was
a searing torture to him. He knew now
64
ASTOUNDING STORIES
that he loved her — now that he had lost
her forever.
“But ” started John.
“I’m not asking you to come along,”
Fred snapped. “Stay here with Pear-
tree. You’ll be safe with him.”
The boy straightened. His eyes
hardened with sudden maturity. “And
lose all chance of ever seeing my
Catherine again?” he said steadily.
“Rather I’ll take my risk with Mardu
himself. I am coming.”
“Good lad!” Fred approved. “Get
in.”
“Here!” the old scientist demanded
in alarm. “How about me?”
“You’ve got to stay behind,” Fred
told him swiftly. “You won’t be much
help in a fight. And you’ll have to keep
this channel of communication open for
us. Or else,” he added with emphasis,
“even if we do find Anne, we, too, will
be wanderers through all eternity.”
Then he swung inside, before Peartree
could protest. “Let’s start,” he said.
Friar Roger Bacon took a deep breath.
A prayer worked silently over his lips.
Then he twisted the ball.
THE incandescent column leaped into
flaming life. A supernal glow blasted its
depths. The crystal hive hazed, turned
opalescent, then slowly cleared. The
platform was gone ; so was Childs Pear-
tree and the apparatus he had evolved.
Outside was nothingness — black as the
pit, featureless, without form or sub-
stance. They seemed suspended in a
shoreless void, where time and space
and man himself had no meaning, no
purpose.
“How can we ever find them in this?”
John asked in despair.
But Fred Walcott was not listening.
All his trained and critical intelligence
was focused on the terrific problem be-
fore him. Quickly he learned what-
ever Friar Bacon could teach him of
the mechanism of the interdimensional
traveler. It was not much. The thir-
teenth-century man, philosopher, schol-
astic, groping scientist though he was,
was not mentally equipped to grapple
with the superscience of Mardu and his
creation.
By trial and error he had discovered
the method by which the slithering crys-
tal ball controlled the column of heatless
flame. That was all.
But Fred experimented, racing against
a time that did not exist, feverishly bend-
ing every faculty to the task. While he
blundered, Anne might already be lost
forever in some unimaginable dimen-
sion.
He gave up ai once the task of de-
termining the nature of the energy col-
umn, of the materials of which the ma-
chine was composed. They were not of
Earth, without doubt not of the universe
in which Earth existed. Dimly, he
sensed that here was an energy break-
down of the fundamental structure of
subspace itself, the primitive continuum
which underlay the space-time formulae
of the several universes. But how it
worked, how it shifted the hive-shaped
structure from one dimension to an-
other, through what patterned warp it
operated, were beyond even his faculties.
Nor was he interested just now. AU
his being concentrated on the single task
of tracking Mardu and the girl through
the bewildering infinities in which they
were enmeshed.
“There must be a way to trace his
course,” he said with quiet desperation.
“Mardu knows it; he chased you from
thirteeneth-century France to beyond
the universe and back again.”
“I do not know the method,” Bacon
declared with philosophic fatalism.
Fred flung himself intensely into the
task. He turned and twisted the writh-
ing ball ; he searched every nook and
cranny of the circumscribed inclosure —
without success. He must have changed
their hurtling flight a hundred times.
LOST IN THE DIMENSIONS
65
Once they flashed into a supernal blue
in which worlds of fantastic geometric
.angles and curves spun and gyrated —
and flashed out again: But no sign of
Mardu, no sign of the method by which
pursuit was possible.
As to a magnet, Fred returned time
and again to the column of sourceless
energy'. Its smooth, shining surface
raced with heatless flame. Fred consid-
. ered it with furrowed brows. Somehow,
within that lambent round
WITH A CRY, he leaned forward.
The tiny sphere control hung quivering
on the convexity. A thin hairline bi-
sected it into hemispheres — so thin, so
faint, he had not noted it before. With
tentative finger nail, Fred tapped along
. the edge, seeking the inner mechanism.
Even as he edged around, there was a
tiny whir. The crystal ball swung open
on a hemispherical axis. Its polished
planes were opaque, and even as they
stared, the surfaces clouded, cleared
into miniature but mechanically perfect
pictures.
Pictures of far-off universes, of vast
nebula spiraling along the immensities,
of triple and quadruple suns in intricate
orbits, of huge life forms floating in the
void, whose brooding intelligences
caused the central column to flicker and
fade with the impact of their mighty
thoughts.
“I’ve got it,” Fred shouted joyfully.
“This is a subspace scanner, which picks
up the energy flows of electron wave
trains, and retranslates them into visual
light.” With taut fingers he swung the
angle of the sphere.
The scene shifted to new quarters. A
comet gleamed with pale, wild light, van-
ished. A city sprang into view, a jum-
ble of strange towers and leaping fires.
Creatures beyond human comprehen-
sion peopled its heights, swarmed out
like bees in flight. Fred spun the angle.
Worlds tumbled on worlds; dimen-
sions leaped into view and gave way
AST— 5
in turn; space glittered like a whirling
kaleidoscope, creation came and so did
moveless death. But always Fred twisted
the angles, seeking but one thing and
one thing alone — the sight of a hive-
. shaped mechanism and of a black, ultra-
dimensional creature and a slim, strug-
gling girl within.
Then he saw them ! In the remotest
corner of the upper hemisphere, so in-
finitely remote that they were but mi-
croscopic pin points on a mosaic of end-
less universes. Yet even as he cried out
fiercely, it seemed Mardu stared directly
up at him with cruel mocker}', and
twisted the sphere. Like an evanescent
mote in a beam of sunshine, they van-
ished into the illimitable inane.
With grim intensity, Fred spun the
scanning hemispheres through all the
angles, caught them again. But even as
he set the total sphere upon the. course,
Mardu had dodged into nothingness
again.
It became a game of hide and seek, a
cosmic chase such as all the space times
had never witnessed since the first crea-
tion — a deadly game in which Anne
Howard was the pawn, and a thousand,
thousand dimensions the field. They
flashed through space of many colors;
they startled strange civilizations with
the apparition of their flight; they
materialized within the depths of strange
suns and stranger entities. And always
Mardu, with his cruel grin, twisted and
ducked, vanishing seconds or minutes or
;eons — they had no means of judging
time — before the space-crashing pursuit
of his own machine.
John, son of Dominick, gaped like a
fish at the dizziness of that terrific chase ;
even Friar Roger Bacon lost his philo-
sophic calm and hunched over with blaz-
ing eyes. But Fred followed every van-
ishment, every sudden lurch into new
spaces and new times, with remorseless
rigor. He had the better machine, but
Murdu was more skilled in operation.
A sickening sensation overcame him.
66
ASTOUNDING STORIES
He would never be able to catch up
with the slippery prey. And sooner or
later, in some unimaginable dimension,
Mardu would achieve his native uni-
verse, would obtain the succor of his
own kind, and blast Fred and his com-
panions into dissipating nothingness.
ALL THIS WHILE, a tiny, move-
less doll, Anne Howard had crouched
in the farthermost round of Mardu’s
machine, just as she had been flung in
the first onslaught. Fred groaned his
despair, thrust out his arm in a mute
gesture of appeal to the pictured repre-
sentation of the girl he loved. Her
eyes lifted. They seemed to cling to his.
Slowly, Anne raised herself. Her
slender body tightened like a drawn
bow. She leaped with unleashed mo-
tion upon the huge black back of her
captor. John, son of Dominick, cried
out in unwitting, unheard encourage-
ment, “A brave girl!”
Her impact staggered Mardu. His
black paw wrenched at the sphere; he
flung around to meet the attack. Then
scene and all vanished, to give way to
the featureless inane of some universe
where space and time had not yet been
created.
“She’ll be killed,” John gasped.
The old Friar groaned.
The sweat burst out in huge globules
on Fred’s forehead. Frantically, he
turned the sphere, spun it round and
round, trying to pick up the lost trail,
to gain once more the sight of the strug-
gling pair.
“There they are,” the lad screamed.
Fred stopped just in time. In his agony
he had almost overleaped.
The girl was beating with vain, small
fists upon the great bulk of her ad-
versary. His mocking grin had given
way to a soundless snarl of rage. He
lifted his paw, clubbed her down with
brutal blows. She sank quivering to
the floor of the pictured cage. Fred,
helpless, unimaginably remote, cursed
frantically. But it was Roger Bacon
who kept his wits about him. The gray-
robed Franciscan Friar leaped to the
control sphere, held it steady toward the
far-distant scene.
Mardu straightened up from the mo-
tionless girl, grinning. Then his cruel
eyes lighted with alarm. He sprang
to his own sphere. It was too late. Di-
rectly alongside, spanning the inter-
mediate dimensions, crashing into that
alien space and time, materialized the
pursuing trio.
His arm arced upward with the speed
of light. But fast as he was, Fred Wal-
cott was faster. The heavy Colt leaped
from its holster, trigger pressed even as
it leaped. The heavy bullet roared from
the muzzle, slammed through the other-
universe crystal, whizzed through a
green-tinged space, splintered the farther
glass of fused retorts, and caught
Mardu, arm swinging upward, full in the
forehead.
He fell backward, crashing into the
ball control, hurtling into the column
of incandescent glow. Flame sheeted
outward ; the vehicle expanded, burst
into a thousand splintering shards.
“Protect us, Heavenly Father!”
moaned John through whitened lips.
Fred jerked the ball madly. The side
of their own conveyance misted, van-
ished.
Roger Bacon started forward with a
cry of alarm. “Don’t, my son! It is
death what you intend.”
But Fred had already catapulted out
into the alien space. Through the
flame and shifting smoke he saw the
motionless form of Anne, floating in
green-tinged nothingness as on a tideless
sea.
His lungs filled to bursting. He
gasped in the airless void. His hurtling
body sped toward the limp girl ; his
hands groped out to catch her in fierce
embrace. He seemed on fire with
strange pricklings, with collapsing
LOST IN THE DIMENSIONS
67
pressures. Perhaps this space was
radioactive. There seemed no gravity.
Far off, a rose-tinted world moved in
the placid depths.
His brain was on fire, his lungs a
gasping bellows. Anne was moveless
in his arms — dead, perhaps. And he,
too, was as good as dead. He thrashed
arms and legs in frantic motion. He
made no progress, could not. The
pressures increased. He burned with
torturing fires.
THEN something caught him, pulled.
Air sighed past him with a thin whoosh ;
crystal materialized suddenly in front
of him.
“Praise to the saints, my master lost
not his head,” John, son of Dominick,
gasped heavily as he released his grip
on the suffocated young man and the girl
to whom he still clung with a fierce, un-
breakable grip. “He manipulated the
control so that we came alongside, and
I was enabled to drag you both within.”
The aged Friar shook his head sadly.
“Aye, but we have lost much of pre-
cious air. It will be but a matter of little
time before what is left will foul beyond
endurance.”
Anne moaned a little, opened her eyes.
“Where am I?” she murmured. Then
she saw Fred bending with agonized
look, felt his. strong arms tightening.
She smiled faintly, happily, relapsed into
unconsciousness.
Outside, in the strange green space,
the exploded vessel drifted in a thousand
scattered pieces. Amid the debris
drifted, as well, Mardu, a round hole
tunneled into his Stygian forehead.
Friar Bacon said with quiet resigna-
tion. “He is dead — devil or demon or
whatever he was. No longer need we
fear his eternal pursuit. You, Fred Wal-
cott, man of my own Earth of a future
time, have slain him for us. But to what
profit? Even now the little remaining
air grows stale, unbreathable. In but a
few bare minutes we, too, shall be
dead.”
The young man deposited the girl
gently on the floor. His mind raced.
They must not die — not now! “How,”
he demanded tensely, “did you happen
to crash through to our platform on
Earth?”
The old man thought heavily. It was
hard to think. There was a roaring in
his brain from the lack of air. “I know
not,” he said with painful intake. “I
know but that we two had despaired of
all return, that I had held the crystal
globe motionless in my hand while I had
pondered what to do.”
In one swift stride Fred was at the
control, had gripped the shifting ball,
held it taut. As lie did so, the column
waned and dulled to a mere thin phos-
phorescence. “That must be it,” he
gasped, fighting for breath. “You shut
off the power unwittingly, and the break
in space time that Peartree had en-
gineered had drawn you through. If
only ”
Light beat about them, brilliant, daz-
zling after the solid black to which they
had become accustomed. Some one was
shouting, incredulously, joyfully.
Fred blinked, grinned slowly. With
utter recklessness he took a deep breath
of the failing air.
Outside was the familiar platform,
with Childs Peartree, his white hair
tousled, wrestling frantically at the
master lever. They had come home,
home to Earth and the Peacock Moun-
tains of Arizona, and the twentieth cen-
tury !
THEY TRIED to persuade Friar
Roger Bacon and young John, son of
Dominick, to remain. The old Fran-
ciscan shook his head quietly. “This is
not my time or age,” he said. “I would
be but a groping neophyte amid your
marvels; I would never feel at home.
Besides” — and his eyes glowed with a
proud light — “I must tell my country-
68
ASTOUNDING STORIES
men, the scholars I know, of what I have
seen. Perhaps thus I may be able to re-
mold my times nearer to truth and the
future.”
“And I” — the lad held himself very
straight — “do wish to return to my
pleasant village, and the, comely arms
of my dearest Catherine.”
“You will lose yourself once more in
infinity,” Fred declared. “Stay !”
“Nay!” answered the Friar confi-
dently. “We shall return. I know more
of the manipulation than I did before.”
Gravely, they shook hands; stead-
fastly, the pair stepped back into Mar-
du’s machine. A final wave of farewell,
a twist of the ball, and they had van-
ished into the black surrounding non-
space.
Fred held Anne tight to him, staring
into the void with heartbreaking eyes.
“They will never make it,” he whispered
huskily.
“But they did,” answered Peartree.
“Remember the Opus Major, the Opus
Minor. In those ancient volumes are
prophecies of our day, of the things
which we explained to him.”
Fred shook his head. "There is no
mention of Mardu and the dimensional
traveler. How do you account for that ?”
“Easily ! These volumes were written
for the pope at his request. Nothing
more was heard of them for many years.
Very likely there was another manu-
script, of such startling import that the
pope ordered it hastily destroyed as
stemming from the devil himself. Re-
member that Roger Bacon was soon
thereafter imprisoned and held in close
confinement, until, as a very old man,
his mind tottering, he was released to
die.” Peartree’s face clouded. “That,”
he said as if to himself, “is the common
fate of pioneers.”
He reached for the master lever.
Slowly, it came up in reverse. The con-
glomerate of apparatus whined and
hummed and buzzed. The circumscrib-
ing blackness gave way to gray. There
was a roar of inrushing elements, of air
and matter and energy and gravity. The
platform rocked in the turmoil.
Then, as they clung close together in
the whirling madness, sunshine blazed
suddenly into the box canyon, and the
mountains stared down upon them with
eternal calm.
The experiment of Childs Peartree
was over !
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Atomic Generator
by John W. Campbell, Jr.
Article No. 18 in a study of the Solar System
T HE SUN is 866,000 miles in
diameter, and its mass is 332.000
times as great as Earth. But it
is not to be regarded as a mass of inert
matter ; it is a functioning, delicately ad-
justed atomic generator, a machine of
infinite complexity, titanic size, yet con-
trolling and regulating the vast efflux of
energy it pours out with a delicacy and
precision utterly astounding in any ma-
chine.
To call the Sun a machine is not meta-
phor, or allegory; it is a machine in
the truest sense. A machine might be
70
ASTOUNDING STORIES
defined as a mechanism which integrates
a series of natural laws into a sequence
of reactions that produces a certain end.
The atomic generator which supplies
Earth with light and heat, by using a
series of very involved physical laws,
succeeds first in transmuting matter
mass to pure energy, then processing the
crude energy released through a long
series of reactions to a usable type of
radiation ; light.
To a certain extent, we know suffi-
cient to draw up specifications on that
atomic generator. Its rough dimensions
have been given, mass and outside di-
ameter. Its average density is about
1.41 times that of water. Incidental to
the vast bulk of that generator is that
mass; something of its specifications as
a power plant can be given, too.
As a power plant, it is a completely
self-contained unit, sealed in with suffi-
cient fuel to last the life of the unit.
The mechanism is completely self-main-
taining, operating without care, repair
or regulation for not less than 30,000,-
000,000 years. The fuel is automati-
cally fed, and will not require renew-
ing; so carefully and perfectly designed
are the multitude of controls placed upon
it that despite the fact that fuel is more
stupendously explosive than anything
known to man, no accident need be
feared. Hundreds of thousands of mil-
lions of these units in varying sizes and
types are in operation, and there is some
doubt that any explosions have been
observed.
This unit transmutes the mass of
matter directly to energy mass. The
Einstein formula E-Mc 2 gives the fig-
ures on that conversion. One gram of
matter mass may be transmuted to one
gram of energy mass; this latter being
equivalent to 9 x 10 20 ergs. In more
comprehensible terms ; a first-rate trans-
pacific liner contains about 1400 tons
of steel. One gram of energy would
be sufficient to reduce that metal to
incandescent, gently bubbling liquid.
The atomic-generator unit under dis-
cussion converts matter to energy at
the rate of 4,000,000,000,000 grams of
matter per second, each gram of which
is quite capable of the above destruction.
Each second, 4,000,000,000,000 grams
of matter are destroyed and radiate away
as radiant energy. But the unit is
packed with sufficient fuel to last out its
life. At that enormous rate of radiation,
4,000,000,000 tons a second, 240,000,-
000 a minute, at the end of 1 50,000,-
000,000 radiation will have carried away
all but about 99 per cent of the Sun.
Precise instruments could, perhaps, tell
the difference. •
GASOLINE is not explosive ; it
won’t react unless oxygen is present.
Therefore, there is no danger in a full
tank of gasoline. But substances such
as nitroglycerin are explosive. Nitro-
glycerin contains, in itself, all the oxygen
and other elements needed for a violent
and instantaneous reaction. But it
would take just about that 14,000 tons
of nitroglycerin to equal in explosive po-
tentialities one gram of atomic fuel.
And the Sun is stored with sufficient
atomic fuel to last a minimum of 30,-
000,000,000 years at 4,000,000,000,000
grams a second.
This is in connection with novas. A
nova is not a true explosion of a star ;
it merely represents a slight blow-off,
the safety valve pops for a moment, a
mere instant of stellar time. The de-
sign of that atomic-generator unit of
ours is far too perfect to allow an ex-
plosion; there is a second line of de-
fenses that keeps it under control. If
the safety valve does release for a mo-
ment, the powerful controlling forces
promptly bring the atomic release back
under its sway.
For truly, a nova is an overrated
thing. Typically , an ordinary nova
flares up swiftly and enormously for not
ATOMIC GENERATOR
71
more than a few weeks, then promptly
the controls reassert themselves, and the
exnova returns to its original delicately
balanced rate of generation.
But even that safety-valve blow-off
isn’t so terrifically violent; it can’t be
called a genuine explosion, not when the
utterly indescribable potentialities for
explosion present are taken into con-
sideration. If a star really exploded,
released all the stored energy designed
to last its Gargantuan furnaces for
meaninglessly great periods of time, in a
single, brief flare, it would be a shock of
energy so vast as to wipe out whole sec-
tions of a galaxy. The ordinary nova,
at its maximum, releases energy no more
swiftly than do certain of the greater
stars at their perfectly normal output.
Rigel, for instance, is one of the brighter
stars of the galaxy, and in normal out-
put exceeds many nova, and about equals
the average.
No, an ordinary nova cannot be called
a true explosion.* The control of that
atomic generator is too sound. The
exact mechanism of that control? We
do not know, nor do we know even
approximately the mechanism of the
generation (if we did, it might well be
that there would be certain lesser
generators here on Earth). Certain
rough outlines of it we can understand,
the method of ignition perhaps, and a
possible answer to the control question.
Apparently no body more than about
30.000 times as massive as the Earth
can exist without becoming self-lumi-
nous. The immense pressures exerted
on the atoms at its core by the thou-
sands of miles of overlying material
stress atoms beyond their ability to re-
sist through structural, static strength;
* “Ordinary** with intent aforethought. There
are also certain objects called “supernova’’ with
sound reason, but they are a subject to them-
selves, and a very limited subject. So rare are
they that none has yet been observed in our
galaxy of thousands of millions of stars. How-
ever, they might conceivably represent that com-
plete loss of control, which an ordinary nova,
definitely, does not.
only by adding to this static strength the
kinetic resistance of immensely high
temperatures can the pressures be sup-
ported.
THOSE TEMPERATURES in the
Sun at its core run to immense intensity.
Whatever the figure may be, all authori-
ties agree on one thing: it is measured
in millions of degrees. Eddington pro-
poses a temperature of about 10,000.-
000° C., while Milne believes it to be
many times higher. (Jeans suggests 32,-
000,000° as a working basis ; other astro-
physicists vary their estimates from Ed-
dington’s conservative figure up to
500.000. 000° C.) At such temperatures
bodies do not radiate heat ; they give off
X rays and they give them off with an
intensity and fervor that is quite incom-
prehensible to ordinary life. Even at
1.000. 000° the radiation would be X-ray
energy, albeit somewhat soft rays, but
the intensity is — beyond conception.
The Sun is, really, too immense to be
pictured as a whole. However, the dis-
tance from even Earth to Moon is an
interplanetary distance, too great for
humans to negotiate to-day. The dis-
tance from Earth to Venus is a vaster
gulf of interplanetary space. Yet Earth,
as the Sun’s center, would find the Moon
in its orbit still 200,000 miles beneath
the Sun’s surjace. The distance from
Earth to Venus is only a bit more than
twoscore times the Sun’s diameter. The
Sun, in other words, is practically of
interplanetary size itself ; beings theoreti-
cally imagined as capable of living on it
would find themselves faced with inter-
planetary distances of millions of miles
in visiting “neighboring” cities. And
that interplanetary-sized surface is about
twice as hot as a tungsten lamp filament,
even at its cold outer surface.
This to illustrate the meaning of a
million degrees centigrade. For a body
28 miles in diameter, equal to one of the
lesser asteroids, astronomically micro-
72
ASTOUNDING STORIES
scopic, would outshine the Sun, give off
more energy than all that colossal thing,
: if its surface temperature were only
1,000,000 degrees. At 10,000,000 equal
to the most conservative estimates of the
Sun’s interior temperature, a body with
a diameter of 2000 feet would radiate
as much energy as all the vast 866,000-
mile Sun. The radiation jetting out
from such a surface would be more
solid than any material we know. An
imaginary (and physically impossible)
opaque surface exposed to the full brunt
of that solid radiation would be sub-
jected to a radiation pressure of 140,000
tons per square inch. (Steel of the best
kind resists almost 250 f«ns per square
inch).
Stated in terms of the Sun’s interior,
the terrific pressures there are borne by
ions (atoms stripped of their electrons),
by the electrons from those atom cores,
' and by driving, mad quanta of radiation
seeking escape into space. This radia-
tion alone would sustain an immense
pressure, and any increase in the tem-
perature there would increase its driving
force.
'Have you seen a Kipp gas generator?
Essentially it consists of 2 flasks : a lower
one filled with, say, marble chips that
will release carbon dioxide on contact
with acid ; and an upper flask filled with
dilute acid. A rubber tube connected
with the lower flask leads the gas away.
The 2 flasks fit hermetically ; the only
escape for the gas is through the tube,
or by forcing the liquid back up the tube
into the upper flask. If gas is drawn
off through the tube, the pressure in the
lower flask falls; acid runs down from
above, releases gas, and the gas so
generated creates pressure to force the
acid back up. Fresh acid can enter at
only such a rate as to balance the with-
drawal.
AS THE SUN throws out energy,
it tends to cool, but cooling would mean
less radiation pressure, less heat move-
ment of ions and electrons to hold up
those outer, pressing layers. They
squeeze inward, perhaps feeding fresh
fuel to that atomic reaction — and a new
violence forces them outward again.
Long since, a balance has been reached,
a steady state where fuel leaks inward
slowly to that internal destruction, its
entry neatly and exactly balancing the
outpouring radiation.
What that fuel is, we do not know.
There is a present, widely considered
theory that it may be hydrogen atoms,
the energy release resulting from the
“packing” of hydrogen atoms to make
more and more complex atoms, first 4
hydrogens being forced together to make
1 helium, then more and more atoms
packing in to produce heavy atoms such
as iron. That could account for it, but
present knowledge is far too limited to
say that it does. It may be such a
process as that, or it may be that total
annihilation of atoms takes place, utterly
destroying all trace of the atom involved
to leave only pure radiant energy. This
theory has met difficulties in the last
few years. Originally, it seemed that
the combination of a positive proton and
a negative electron might lead to such
a destruction and release of radiant
energy. Now, we know it does not;
it leads to the production of a neutron
instead.
The difference is, however, funda-
mental and important in cosmology. If
atoms are annihilated, then, presumably,
a large portion of the Sun’s mass might
ultimately be consumed in that reaction.
If instead, the hydrogen reaction is the
power source, then only the small pro-
portion of the mass represented by the
so-called “packing fraction” of hydrogen
is available, a quantity probably of the
order of one one-hundredth of the
energy available on the other scheme.
That difference means an immense fore-
shortening of the Sun’s total life.
ATOMIC GENERATOR
73
In one respect the 2 energy releases
are identical: they would release energy
in the Sun’s heart as a crude, savage
type of radiant energy of unbearable
concentration. Such energy released to
space would destroy any exposed living
matter instantly ; life on Earth would be
starkly impossible.
But our atomic generator ages and
refines that crude energy into a more
usable form.
The exact type of energy released at
the Sun’s heart depends on the type of
annihilation taking place; but whatever
it may be. it represents quanta of im-
mensely penetrant and energetic type,
more deadly than X rays certainly. This
radiation, released 430,000 miles beneath
the Sun's surface, savagely seeks a way
of escape. Driving outward at 186,000
miles a second, it is nevertheless stopped
almost instantly by absorption in one
of the savagely battered atomic nuclei
packed to enormous density there at the
Sun’s heart. For a moment of time —
perhaps a hundred-millionth of a second
— it is held trapped, before the nucleus
discharges it again. But probably its
release (which may be in any direction)
is not in the original outward direction;
it may be forced to retrace its course.
In any case, it is reabsorbed, reradiated,
time after time, each absorption and re-
lease occupying that brief fragment of
a second.
What infinities of absorption and
radiation it undergoes in its near half-
million-mile journey to the far surface,
no one can guess. But each absorption
takes its minute fraction of a second, and
in the countless repetitions of that proc-
ess, ages pass countless centuries,
myriad of milleniums. Probably that
aging and refining process that each
quantum of energy must undergo takes
in all millions and tens of million of
years, all that vast aging being made up
in units of hundred-millionths of a
second.
THE OUTPUT terminal of that
atomic generator has an area of some-
thing like 3,000,000,000,000 square
miles, the Sun’s surface. It’s “poten-
tial” is its temperature ; about 6000® C.
It is impossible to give an accurate tem-
perature, such as 6115° C., because there
is nothing that can be pointed out and
labeled: “This is the radiating surface
of the Sun.” The “surface” is a radi-
ating layer, the photosphere, probably
thousands of miles in depth. The tem-
perature of this layer varies widely with
depth, so that 6000° represents the ef-
fective temperature of the effective sur-
face.
That temperature is high enough to
volatilize all known substances; it is
higher than any chemical reaction can
produce (most reactions known on
Earth run the other way there : water
yields hydrogen plus oxygen). Ob-
viously then, this output terminal repre-
sents a higher concentration of energy
than we can produce on Earth to-day.
Even on Earth, where the energy con-
centration has been diluted by nearly
100,000,000 miles of distance, the density
is still nearly 650,000 horse power per
square mile. Probably the greatest con-
centration of man-made power plants
is centered about Manhattan Island ; one
plant alone generates 1,000.000 electrical
t horse power. Yet in all the clustered
plants in that concentratedly developed
little district, the most highly developed
area on Earth perhaps, the electrical and
steam-power plants could not equal the
Sun’s concentration of energy. And
the Sun js working on the hard end of
the inverse square law, to the tune of
100,000,000 miles.
At the Sun's surface, the power con-
centration is 70,000 horse power per
square yard (enough to run an ocean
liner). 3,970,600 square yards make
one square mile. And about 3,000,000,
000,000 square miles makes one Sun
surface. The Sun, in other words,
74
ASTOUNDING STORIES
radiates about 450 million million mil-
lion horse power. One two-billionth of
that is sufficient to warm all Earth, for
of all that vast flood Earth intercepts
only that microscopic fraction.
But to astronomy, the Sun has yet
other meanings. First, it is the lord
and ruler of the solar system by its im-
mense gravitational attraction, almost
1000 times the mass of all other mem-
bers of the system combined. Second,
historically, and first in interest now,
the Sun is the only example of those
monstrous atomic generators that sprin-
kle space that is close enough for de-
tailed study — the only available star.
And, third, it is not only the ringmas-
ter of the system, but almost certainly
the place of origin of the other mem-
bers; from it, the planets were almost
certainly torn.
And that last is one of the most ab-
sorbing mysteries of all ; for though
dozens of theories have been advanced
as to the mechanism of that creation,
each has its difficulties, not the least of
which is the absolute iron grip the Sun
has on its surface matter. There are
disruptive forces enough at work, space
knows, but there is one titanic intergra-
tive force at work that paralyzes them
all. Heat, expansive power of super-
heated gas, the pressure of those driv-
ing floods of radiation, the wild, mad
tornadoes of electromagnetic energy
known as Sun spots, all tend toward dis-
ruption and dispersion.
But the gravitational grip of the Sun’s
enormous mass is not easily broken.
Were the Sun as dense as Earth, the
surface gravity would be even greater
than it is, but with the low density of
1.41 times that of water, the surface
gravity is still 28 times that of Earth.
This high surface figure alone is not as
important as the second fact, that at
2,500,000 miles, the gravitational force
still exceeds Earth’s surface gravity.
Escaping matter must fight an intense
field for millions of miles.
THE RESULT is that even driven
by the wild heat motion of 6000°, hydro-
gen, lightest and most volatile of sub-
stances, is helplessly bound. Heat mo-
tion alone is incapable of lifting matter
any great distance against that colossal,
dragging force. But light pressure —
the intense, driving force of light quanta
— trapped by atoms and giving to the
atom the momentum that would have
permitted the light to escape. Riding on
that jetting, almost tangible force atoms
are carried up as individuals for millions
of miles. Immense volumes of matter
are sometimes caught up in a jetting
blast of light and whirled out in immense
prominence to . distances of hun-
dreds of thousands of miles. Cal-
cium, hydrogen, helium, iron, sodium
and other metallic atoms in gaseous
state are hurtled out at speeds of a hun-
dred or more miles a second.
Mice fleeing the cat’s claws. Even
should they attain 200 — 300 miles a
second, the Sun’s grip would be merely
playing with them. 600 miles a second
is the velocity required to escape that
grip. Occasional bursts do reach im-
mense speeds, approaching that velocity
of escape sufficiently closely to recede to
the distance of the planets before the
burst of light that drove them outward
fades away to normal intensity. It is
these bits of matter, so driven out that,
it is believed, may collect to form
meteoric and cometary material. But
it has not escaped from the Sun ; it still
must yield to his sway.
Those bursts of light that drive out
the flaming, prevailingly red eruptive
prominences seem to be associated with
Sun spots. A second, less spectacular
type, the quiescent prominences, are not
associated with those vast electromag-
netic storms, but act more like Terres-
trial clouds, vast incandescent masses of
hydrogen, helium and calcium floating
in the Sun’s outermost, and strangest
atmosphere, an atmosphere of light.
Held up, apparently, by the steady drive
ATOMIC GENERATOR
75
of light from the surface below, they
hang quietly, without much motion,
changing but slowly in form.
The Sun spots themselves range in
size from the limit of observability with
a telescope to' monstrous holes 100,000
kilometers in diameter, easily visible
with the eye shielded by smoked glass
or layers of exposed camera film. The
disturbed surrounding surface may have
a diameter 2 or 3 times as great, mak-
ing the total area of disturbance often 100
times the area of all Earth. The spots
appear as black holes on the Sun’s bright
surface. That blackness is due to their
far lower temperature, often as much
as 1000 degrees below the general sur-
face. The resulting less-intense radi-
ation makes it appear black. So cold
and dim is this Sun-spot area, in fact,
that the positive crater of a carbon arc
is in comparison about — say, twice as
black. Black it may be against the Sun’s
incandescent surface, cold in compari-
son, but it is still far hotter than any
source of light we use, on Earth.
When light moves through a magnetic
field the spectrum lines are powerfully
affected, depending on the relationship
between direction of light and magnetic
field ; the light is plane or circularly
polarized, and the lines of the spectrum
are doubled or tripled. This gives a
means of determining the nature and
strength of Sun-spot magnetic fields.
The spectrum shows them to be enor-
mous, and intense, and in a line per-
pendicular to the Sun. These magnetic
fields are, apparently, caused by a vast
whirlwind spinning of the ionized gases
of the Sun.
These vast magnetic storms on the
Sun (only a hundred diameters of that
body from Earth) not unnaturally cause
powerful disturbances on Earth, greater
auroras, magnetic storms, and floods of
electrons. Radio and all electrical com-
munication is frequently violently dis-
turbed. Fortunately, the huge cyclones
act like immense gun barrels, squirting
their disturbing influences in a definitely
aimed direction. Only occasionally, in
consequence, is one of the greater storms
so situated as to point directly toward
Earth, and then, due to the Sun’s rota-
tion, it is not long so situated.
For the Sun rotates, and in that rota-
tion. curiously, is one of the greatest
stumbling blocks to theories that seek
to explain creation. Once in 25 days
at the equator, once in 34 at the poles.
In consequence of this slow turning, the
Sun, with 999 out of 1000 parts of the
system’s mass, possesses but 20 out of
1000 parts of the rotary momentum of
the system! That fact, more than the
constitution of the planets, is the stum-
bling block of theorists.
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community where the
QUEEN of the SKIES
A city — holding within
its power the destiny
of an entire world
I T WAS just before the last tank of strain at its tug ropes. They were think-
compressed hydrogen had been re- ing of the trip they were soon to make
leased into the huge gas bag that into the far stratosphere. They hoped
the news came. Professor Dumont and to reach eighteen miles, higher than man
Milo Gibson were standing together, had gone before.
watching the great balloon fill out and “It won’t be long now,” Dumont said
n
How could this tinsel and
multihued city — that looked
fragile enough to shatter at
the first clap of thunder — exist
here — eighteen miles above the
Earth?
excitedly, working his sweaty hands to-
gether. His sensitive, thin, intellectual
features showed the effort he was mak-
ing to appear calm. He turned to his
young companion. “Are you nervous,
Milo?”
78.
ASTOUNDING STORIES
“Jimniiny crickets !”. exclaimed Milo,
with boyish enthusiasm. “I Can hardly
wait !”
One of the ground officials hurried
up. He appeared to be trying to strain
ahead of his body, as though he had
something important to say. He did.
He said it in a voice whose inflections
were all wrong, due to his agitation.
“Gentlemen, it’s happened — war! War
has been declared by the European Al-
liance on America. Heaven have mercy
on us ”
Milo gripped his shoulder and
squeezed it. “What are you saying,
man ? Are you sure of it ? War !”
“Sure I’m sure of it,” screeched the
official of the meteorological bureau.
“Didn’t I just get it over the phone from
our branch war office in the city? War,
I tell you ! Declared this morning at
4 a. m. over the American trading in
African seaports, against the recent
European Alliance’s embargo. A mere
excuse, of course. It’s a plain war of
aggression against America. But there’s
no help for it, for us. The general or-
der for mobilization of all war forces
has gone through already. Gentlemen,
you can’t go up, naturally. This is to be
a war of science. All scientists, such as
yourselves, must be subsidized for this
national emergency.”
Professor Dumont’s thin, gaunt fig-
ure jerked. His deep-set eyes, usually
calm, flashed fire.
“On the contrary,” he said firmly,
“we are going up ! This is a scientific
expedition. Science cannot stop for even
war. All the instruments are packed.
Everything is ready. We’re going.”
Young Milo looked at his superior ad-
miringly. “Atta boy, chief,” he said,
“I’m with you. Up we go.”
“You can’t!” the official spluttered.
“I— I forbid it !”
Dumont tapped his inside coat pocket,
smiling. “I have the official order to
go up. You can’t stop me unless you
have an official countermand from
Washington. It would take you at least
three hours to get it. By then we’ll be
gone. Come on, Milo, I think we can
get in the gondola.”
He turned once more to the official’s
baffled face. “I’ve waited five years for
this chance to fly into the stratosphere.
I had to fight that long to get sufficient
funds from a niggardly treasury.” He
smiled bitterly. “You don’t think I’m
going to let patriotism or a so-called na-
tional emergency stop me now ? I would
then be more of a pig-headed fool than
you are.”
The two meteorologists strode to the
gondola. The official tagged along, like
a barking dog, roundly abusing them as
everything from traitors to rebels. Fi-
nally, in exasperation, Dumont turned
around and tweaked his nose violently.
Milo chuckled.
“All set!” Milo called to the ground
crew. “Seal us in the gondola.”
The two scientists crawled into the
ten-foot ball of aluminum, the style set
by Piccard, and made themselves as
comfortable as they could on the hard
metal floor. The men outside twisted
the threaded door piece tight.
FINALLY, some of the ropes
dropped and the gopdola rocked gently.
The straining gas bag was then released
entirely and it jerked the gondola off
the ground with enough force to throw
Dumont and Milo in a tangled heap in
the bottom. They picked themselves
apart and shook hands, grinning. They
had looked forward to this for a long
time.
They were dressed in jumpers for
warmth, but these could be taken off in
a minute by the zipper runs at the sides
and chest, in the event it became warm
from the friction of air. Boxed and
bolted to the walls and ceiling were their
supplies and instruments. The oxygen-
ated-air tanks were firmly anchored in a
circle around the central floor space.
“We’re probably swinging over the
QUEEN OF THE SKIES
79
city now,” said Dumont, after he had
seen that the barometer, thermometer
and altimeter were working. These
three instruments were attached to the
outside hull, but their readings were
mechanically rendered to their eyes in-
side. They were also equipped to make
permanent records on charts, as were the
other instruments, which would record
ionization, magnetic strength, and the
cosmic rays. Particularly the latter.
Their ascent continued smoothly, im-
pelled by the giant balloon, a hundred
feet above. They began to feel detached
from Earth, as though they were going
to another planet. Yet one thing was
uppermost in their minds.
Finally Milo spoke of it. “War!” he
said wonderingly.
Dumont shrugged. “It was inevitable.
When the European Alliance was
formed two years ago, war had already
been planted as a seed. In its bald-faced
aspect, the European Alliance was
formed for one purpose : to conquer
America and England, the English-
speaking world.
“America, by which we include all of
South and North America, is tre-
mendously rich in resources. The Brit-
ish Empire is equally rich in lands. Thus
land-and-resource-starved Europe saw
how, in one bold stroke, it could have
both these things. Instead of bickering
among ourselves and taking land and re-
sources from each other, they reasoned,
why not unite our great war machines
and attack the Western World, and at
the same time disrupt the British Em-
pire? It is deadly logic. The war now
resulting will be a holocaust, a titanic
struggle for world mastery. If the
European Alliance wins, they will divide
America and Britain like a pack of
wolves tearing apart a deer.
“The European group of nations is a
formidable line-up of bandits armed to
the teeth. Their war forces are tre-
mendous, more than a match, I think,
for the English-speaking world’s unag-
gressive forces. And South America is
almost totally unprotected. They will
conquer it first, and establish bases there
from which to attack the northern
strongholds.”
Milo succeeded in establishing radio
contact a little later.
“Latest report,” came from below, “is
that the Alliance has declared war on
England. This was expected. But
here’s something unexpected. Japan has
joined the Alliance, and has already
been promised the State of California!
America will be attacked from both
sides !”
II.
AT TEN THOUSAND FEET, the
flying expedition and ground radio again
exchanged reports. The former men-
tioned only that they had turned on
their compressed-air tank slowly. The
news from below was that an English
fleet had already engaged with one of
the Alliance, in the first skirmish of the
new war of the colossi. Obviously, the
Alliance had maneuvered its forces into
strategic positions long before actual
war had been declared.
At twenty-six thousand feet. Milo
said, “We are passing through thick veils
of cirrus and cirrostratus clouds. Our
observation ports are completely fogged.
Temperature has dropped to forty-eight
below. A strong lateral wind is carry-
ing us westward, according to our com-
pass.”
The ground radio said, “Mobilization
of defenses on all seacoasts of America
is well on its way. Realizing the mag-
nitude of the occasion, the President has
ordered a general draft of all industry
as well as man power in the United
States. The English ambassador is al-
ready arranging for a meeting of Eng-
lish and American military authorities.”
At seven miles, the voice from above
said, “We are now leaving the tropo-
sphere and entering the stratosphere.
Sky absolutely clear. Lateral wind has
80
ASTOUNDING STORIES
died down. Balloon still rising steadily.”
The voice from below, “The English
fleet is desperately defending the British
coast. An armada of battle planes is re-
ported to have been sighted on the way,
to South America. Japan has calmly
taken over the Philippine Islands.”
At ten miles, Milo reported, “Sky get-
ting very dark. Air is absolutely calm.
Temperature uniform at sixty-five be-
low. Our gauge outside shows an al-
most complete lack of water vapor. As
with other expeditions, our gondola is
very warm. We’ve taken off our jump-
ers. Everything fine.”
From the surface world, “Wish we
could say the same down here. A
Japanese fleet has been sighted steaming
for the Hawaiian Islands. The entire
naval forces of the European Alliance
are being hurled against England in the
attempt to invade her territory. Scat-
tered reports from her colonies show that
large bodies of troops secretly trans-
ported before war was declared are al-
ready invading India, Australia, and
South Africa. No action yet on either
of the American continents.”
At fourteen miles, the voice from
above the clouds said, “We are now
passing the previous record of height
reached by man. The cosmic rays show
an increase of intensity, proportional to
the decrease in the air density. Sky is
black-violet. Temperature has climbed
again to fifty-eight below. We’re rising
much more slowly now.”
The voice from the other side of the
clouds said, “This war is progressing
with the amazing rapidity of a bad
dream. The Alliance fleet withdrew
temporarily, unable to smash through
the British line of capital ships. Shortly
after, the first aerial engagement took
place, over London. While the Alliance
battle planes dueled the English air de-
fense, bombers rained death and destruc-
tion on London. This is to be a war
of civilian slaughter. Thousands are
dead in London, and part of it is in
flames. Daring reporters with micro-
phones are describing the terrible
scenes of carnage, for broadcast by low
wave. AH the world will live this war
every minute of the day.”
Up in the gondola, high above this
Martian turmoil, Dumont and Milo
looked sadly at one another, shaking
their heads.
DUMONT became busy with his in-
struments. “From here on,” he said,
“all our data will be first hand. So far
it has merely been confirmation of what
Piccard and others found, up to the
height of thirteen and seven-tenths miles.
But now, Milo,- we are pioneers. It’s
stuffy in here. Open the release cock
a bit and then step up our fresh-air sup-
ply.”
Milo gingerly crawled on hands and
knees around two tanks and reached for
the release cock of the gondola. He
twisted the valve cautiously. With a
sharp hiss the warm, overcompressed air
escaped out into the rarefied strato-
sphere. He carefully sealed the valve
again, and set the air tank’s stream of
gas at an increased rate.
They breathed deeply of the revivi-
fying gas. It startled them suddenly to
hear a dull roar and see a blinding ob-
ject rush by their one window port.
“What was that?” asked Milo. He
wondered if it were possible for an acci-
dental shell to have been aimed up this
way, from the war below.
“That was close !” exclaimed Du-
mont, wiping his forehead. “We nearly
tangled up with a meteor. You know,
up here where the air is thin, meteors
are constantly flashing down at some-
thing like thirty miles a second, before
they burn up completely. This one may
have been no bigger than a peanut, but it
could easily shear right through both
sides of our hull.”
“Let’s give them the right o’ way,”
said Milo, with an attempt at humor.
He crawled to the professor’s side and
QUEEN OF THE SKIES
81
helped him set the octagonal beam aerial
in its universal mounting. After hook-
ing in another battery, they sent radio
beams upward, in short signals, vary-
ing the wave length.
Bits of music and voices clipped short
were heard, as Dumont spun the dial to
get past the broadcast range of short
waves. His hand hesitated as one voice
rose compellingly, “ — a shambles. So is
Piccadilly Square, which is in my line
of vision from this tower. Proverbially,
not one stone is left on another. Smoke
overhangs everything. It does not quite
hide those silent, huddled shapes, though.
Piccadilly Square was milling with aft-
ernoon crowds when the bombing began
without warning. Women, children, ba-
bies, all were ”
Dumont wrenched the dial over sav-
agely. “We’re on a scientific expedi-
tion,” he reminded himself.
At a little over eighteen and a half
miles, Milo reported, “Sky now almost
dense black with several of the brighter
stars visible. Sirius is conspicuous.
Temperature still constant. We’ve
made tests of the radio wave mirrors
of ionized gases. Layer D, reflecting
long waves, seems to be no more than
twenty-five miles up. Layer E, Ken-
nelly-Heaviside, is at present fifty miles
high. Layer F, Appleton, reflecting
short waves, is one hundred and fifty
miles. We are barely rising now, about
ten feet a minute.”
The ground radio blared, “England
is being ringed in a formidable wall
of armed forces. A French fleet is bom-
barding Liverpool. The German fleet
is steaming down the coast of Scotland.
The mixed Alliance air fleet is continu-
ing the bombardment of London, but is
meeting unexpected resistance from anti-
aircraft defenses. So far over there it
is a deadlock. In the Western Hemi-
sphere, South America awaits attack.
Brazil has mustered its aerial fleet. The
United States naval fleet is patrolling
both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.
AST— 6
Plans are being made for the govern-
ment’s evacuation from Washington.”
The gondola rose steadily but slowly.
Dumont strained anxious eyes upward.
The balloon was distended to giant size.
When the altimeter indicated exactly
nineteen miles, the upward motion
ceased. Very gradually the balloon be-
gan to descend, drifting slightly to the
west, though there was no wind. It was
an effect of their own inertia against ro-
tation, since at nineteen miles the arc
of rotation was wider than at lower
levels, coincident with the falling off
of Earth’s gravitational grip.
They took a last look at the world of
nineteen miles’ height. They might
never see it again. It was a dark, som-
ber region they saw through their ports,
lighted by a few stars, almost airless
and completely windless and cloudless.
It had the eerie quality of a dream.
Then, as though a curtain had been
raised, all the stars winked into being,
in a background of jet black. The sun
had set. It was true night. Milo
sighed, as though in relief. It didn’t
seem so weird now.
They put on their jumpers again, for
the interior temperature had dropped
considerably. Milo sat down with his
back against a tank, hands folded over
his knees. Dumont turned to see the
altimeter reading.
AT THIS MOMENT the gondola
jerked violently. Dumont turned ashen
gray and attempted to rise, but a sudden
downward plunge of the gondola threw
him off his feet. Milo steadied himself
with a grip on an instrument box bolted
to the wall, and looked upward out of
the port.
“Look!” he gasped. “Our balloon
burst ! Of all the rotten luck ”
Dumont had now succeeded in scram-
bling to his feet and looked out him-
self. The dark shape of the gas bag
above, outlined by the lake of shimmer-
ing stars, was distorted into an ellipsoid.
82
ASTOUNDING STORIES
with one side rapidly collapsing inward.
Even as they watched, they could see it
shrinking from loss of its precious con-
tents.
Dumont’s hand on Milo’s shoulder
squeezed so hard that Milo winced. “All
this work gone for nothing,” groaned
Dumont hollowly. “We’re facing death !
My wife — my children Lord !”
“Take it easy, chief,” admonished
Milo, with a calmness he did not feel.
He could not help thinking of his mother,
patiently waiting his return.
“Eighteen miles, Milo!” cried the
elderly scientist. “Good Lord, we’ll fall
for eighteen miles! Think of the ter-
rific velocity we’ll have by the time we
reach ground. The gondola will split
open like a ripe pod. We’ll be crushed
to pulp!”
“Maybe all the gas won’t leak out,”
argued Milo unhopefully. “Enough
may remain to ease the gondola to
Earth.”
But their speed of descent kept in-
creasing. He turned to the radio and
switched it on with trembling fingers.
“Hello, hello down there,” whispered
Milo. “We’re falling. Balloon burst.
Only miracle can save us.”
And then the miracle happened.
There was a jarring crash that flung
them to the floor like sacks of wet flour.
Milo felt as though his spine had been
driven up through his brain. Just be-
fore he lost consciousness, he reflected
that it could not be the ground they had
struck, for that was eighteen miles be-
low. What, then, could it be?
When Milo Gibson recovered his er-
rant senses, he found himself sick but
otherwise unharmed. He tested his arms
and legs, fingers and ribs, half fearfully,
but the rude crash had not broken any
bones.
He pulled himself erect and staggered
to the nearest port. He gasped as he
looked out. He saw nothing but abys-
mal emptiness, with the stars overhead.
Yet their ship was resting solidly on
something. Was it invisible, or merely
cloaked by the darkness? Peering out
of the other port, his eyes widened and
threatened to pop out of their sockets.
“Holy smoke!” His surprised ex-
clamation rang like a pistol shot in the
confined space.
Then he turned his attention to his
companion. Professor Dumont lay
crumpled against a tank, with one arm
bent under him. A small trickle of
blood ran from under his head to the
center of the floor space. Yet not ex-
actly in the center, for the gondola was
tilted considerably.
Milo unlatched the supply box, took
out a thermos bottle of cold water and
splashed some in Dumont’s face. The
scientist groaned, turned over and
opened his eyes wearily. He said noth-
ing as the younger man bathed the cut
at the side of his head and dressed it
with salve, surgical gauze and tape from
the first-aid kit. Milo helped him to his
feet.
“Where are we, Milo?” asked Du-
mont. “Have you any idea?”
Milo did not answer till his companion
had peered out of the port and seen the
same incredible sight he’d seen. Then he
said, “We’re eighteen miles above
ground ; the altimeter still says so.”
“But that — that city out there !” de-
manded Dumont, as though Milo must
know. “What is a city doing eighteen
miles in the air?”
Milo shrugged wearily. His eyes had
a sort of dazed quality to them. The
brain behind had been shocked to a state
of lethargy. “I don’t know, .chief,” he
replied. “All I know is that we’ve been
saved from death — that I’m very tired.
Since we can’t do anything about this,
at least till daylight, let’s have some
sleep. Whatever that pipe dream is
outside, it’ll wait.”
They both yawned. “You’re right,”
agreed Dumont. They curled them-
selves up as comfortably as possible on
the harsh metal and went quickly to
83
QUEEN OF THE SKIES
sleep, tired in mind as well as body.
When Milo awoke again, rubbing the
sleep out of his eyes, he saw Professor
Dumont standing at the forward port.
"Good morning, chief,” greeted Milo,
feeling in good spirits.
"It’s still there,” said Dumont, stand-
ing aside so his companion could look
out. "I thought maybe it had been a
dream last night.”
III.
THE RISING SUN somewhere to
the back had lighted up the region to a
certain extent. But the lights of the
city were still on. It was revealed by
them more than by the near gloom of
dawn. It was like something out of the
Arabian Nights. The buildings were as
fanciful as symbolic art creations and as
richly adorned as Chinese pagodas.
"Lord !” choked Milo. He breathed
deeply, stunned. He could not take
his eyes off the elfin city. How could
it exist here, this tinsel and multihued
city that looked fragile enough to shat-
ter into a million flying crystals at the
first clap of thunder ? He must be
dreaming. But at the same time he
knew he wasn’t.
Dumont was trying to signal Earth
with the radio. "It’s dead,” he an-
nounced. “The landing must have
wrecked it.” He looked up. "Well,
Milo, what do you think of it?”
“Gosh !” responded the young meteor-
ologist. "I still can’t believe my eyes.
Question is, though, just what are we
going to do now ?”
Dumont opened the supply box and
pulled out some sandwiches wrapped in
waxed paper. “Maybe we can think
better after we eat.”
Just as they munched the last of the
sandwiches, Milo started and peered
more closely out of the window. He
pointed to a black opening at the base
of the nearest building, from which had
emerged several figures. It was too far
away to distinguish them. They ap-
proached rapidly.
“A reception committee,” said Milo.
“I — I hope they’re human!”
Dumont looked at him queerly but
said nothing. Both of them wondered
what sort of creatures could live in a
mysterious floating city eighteen miles
above ground, breathing air of a density
ten times less than at Earth’s surface,
and existing in a uniform cold of sixty
degrees below zero.
As the group approached, the meteor-
ologists felt a queer sense of relief, for
they were undeniably human beings —
six men of deeply bronzed skin and
curly, straw-colored hair. They looked
like Nordics who had been exposed to
a tropical sun. Their clothing consisted
of baggy trousers coming together at
the ankles, loose jackets tight around
their waists and necks, and shoes of
some soft material, all brightly colored.
Their hands, faces and heads were ex-
posed to the air.
The two watchers examined their
faces as they came closer. It was quite
apparent that they were of some race
closely resembling the Nordics, with
thin, straight noses, high foreheads and
sky-blue eyes. They were tall and nar-
row-hipped, and walked with a jaunty
step.
Dumont looked at his companion sud-
denly. “By Heaven, Milo, they look
like your brothers !”
The group approached the gondola
rather hesitantly, their faces puzzled.
They showed no sign of fear. Yet,
though they were obviously excited, not
once did any of them move his lips to
speak to the others. Suddenly, their gaze
turned, as one, to the port out of which
the two scientists were peering. For a
minute the eyes of the meteorologists
met those of the strange men, wonder
on both sides.
“Evidently we’re just as queer fish to
them as they are to us,” commented
Milo. “And now what?”
84
ASTOUNDING STORIES
THEY DID not have long to wait.
One of them, older and more authorita-
tive-looking than the rest, without say-
ing a word to the others apparently,
calmly strode up to the gondola. He
passed out of the scientists’ sight, but a
moment later they heard him knocking
on the door seal.
“Leaping lizards!’’ exclaimed Milo.
“He wants to come in !”
That was a dilemma. If they opened
the seal, all their air would rush out.
“Yet it could be done,” murmured Du-
mont thoughtfully. “We could let him
in, close the seal again quickly, and open
an air tank till the pressure builds up
to normal. It shouldn’t take more than
a minute and wouldn’t be any worse
for us than holding our breaths under
water for that long.”
“Right, chief,” said Milo eagerly.
“These people look friendly and are
absolutely unarmed. They can’t have
any harmful intentions. Let him in.”
Dumont stationed himself beside the
air tank while Milo worked at the seal
plate. When he had turned the huge
plate several times by means of the han-
dles, there was a low hiss of escaping
air. By the time he had unscrewed
the seal entirely, all the air was gone.
Milo held the plate aside and motioned
frantically for the tall stranger to crawl
in. Without hesitation, the bronzed man
stepped in and Milo hastily screwed the
seal in, with spots in front of his eyes
from holding his breath.
Dumont closed the valve when
pressure was normal. Then he and
Milo looked curiously at the bronzed
stranger who stood before them.
Milo grinned at the professor. “Now
just what do we do?” he asked musingly.
“Naturally, he doesn’t know our lan-
guage and we don’t know his. About
all we can do is smoke a pipe of peace
— if we had a pipe.”
The stranger smiled as though appre-
ciating the joke. Milo looked startled.
“One miracle has happened already,”
he muttered. “But we can’t expect an-
other. This chap couldn’t understand
English.”
The visitor smiled still more broadly.
“On the contrary,” he said in perfect
English, with a precise accent, “I do!”
Dumont asked: “You are human be-
ings then ? An Earth race ?”
“Yes, of course,” replied the stranger
in some surprise. “Yet we have not
been on Earth’s surface for twelve thou-
sand years! For that length of time
have we lived in our sky city, isolated
from the place of our origin. Our only
connection with Earth’s surface has been
through long-range observation. Yet
that was only a one-way connection, for
I’m sure no one on Earth suspects our
existence ?”
“Decidedly not,” agreed Dumont. He
was slightly dazed. “Twelve thousand
years!” he murmured, trying to assim-
ilate that fact. A thousand questions
popped into his mind with the rapidity
of a machine gun.
Before he could ask even one of them,
the visitor held up a hand. “Before we
go into deeply involved explanations,”
said the bronzed man, smiling at their
eagerness, “let us take care of certain
immediate things. I assume that you
have no way of getting back to the sur-
face at present. Am I right?”
“Yes, we could get back,” answered
Milo, dryly. “But only in the form of
badly mashed corpses, by the simple
process of dropping eighteen miles.
We’re open to any alternative sugges-
tions, Mr. — ah ’*
The stranger took the hint. “My
name of course. It is ValdasC' Olo-
Kwar.” He inclined his head in a
courtly gesture when Milo introduced
himself and Dumont. Then he looked
closely at Milo. “You resemble our
people closely. You are of the Viking
race, perhaps?”
“Well, not exactly that,” amended
Milo. “I’m from Scandinavian stock,
though, which traces its ancestry back
QUEEN OF THE SKIES
85
to those Vikings, at least in part. Why
■ do you ask ?”
“All in good time,” returned the
stranger. “Now, if you will trust me,
I want you both to take these little
white pellets.” He drew a small glass
vial from his belt, containing a dozen
tablets. “These,” he went on to explain,
“are a harmless compound which have
the remarkable property of reducing the
metabolism of the human body. It is a
sort of self-renewing enzyme which in-
hibits the activity of the glands, and
through them- of the entire body proc-
esses, so that one lives at a lower tempo.
It lowers the pulse, reduces blood heat,
and cuts down the general katabolism
of the body cells.”
“I get it,” said Milo. “Reduced
metabolism means less need for oxygen
in the blood, and therefore less breath-
ing necessary. But will we actually be
able to live on one tenth the supply of
air at the surface?”
“Yes, through automatic compensa-
tion,” put in Dumont. “The human body
is remarkably adaptive. Our respira-
tion rate will probably increase, and our
lungs will inflate to their full extent
with each breath. These, combined with
the lowered metabolism, will enable us
to exist in this rarefied atmosphere.
O. K., Valdasc Olo-Kwar, we’ll take
those pills.”
The sky dweller seemed pleased. “I’m
glad you are so willing to put your-
selves in our hands.”
Dumont smiled whimsically. “There
isn’t much else we can do, to tell the
truth.”
SOMEHOW convinced that the sky
man meant only well, the two men from
Earth’s surface carried out all bis sug-
gestions. He gave them each a pill,
which was tasteless, and explained that
one pill’s effect lasted about a week.
Then he took Milo’s wrist in his hand
and felt for the pulse. In keeping with
the lowering of his heartbeat, Valdasc
Olo-Kwar valved air out of the gondola.
Dumont had pointed out the valve to
him.
It was a strange sensation. Milo
felt a vague turmoil within his body.
A subtle lethargy seemed to steal into
every fiber of his being. He sensed that
all the cells in his body were slowly and
gradually cutting down their normal
activity, smoothly and efficiently. He
was surprised to find himself breathing
more and more deeply, without any con-
scious effort on his part.
“There,” said Valdasc Olo-Kwar
finally, opening the release cock wide.
The last hiss of escaping gas came to
their ears, then was gone. “You are
now breathing normally in an atmos-
phere ten times as tenuous as at the sur-
face. You will probably feel tired and
enervated for a time, but that feeling
will pass.”
“Do you people have to take these
pills ?•” asked Dumont with the scientist’s
curiosity.
“We do,” said the sky man. “Our
body mechanism is attuned to surface
conditions just like yours. Evolution
has not been able to adapt us as a race
in a paltry twelve thousand years. Come,
shall we go out ?”
“Miracle No. 3,” murmured Milo.
He watched Valdasc unscrew the seal
plate and finally lower it. They stepped
out into the blinding brilliance of a risen
Sun.
“No wonder these people are bronzed
so deeply,” said Milo. “This has Cali-
fornia Sunshine beat a mile.”
“We’d better not be out in the Sun
too long at first,” commented Dumont
wisely, “or we’ll come down with a
blistered skin.”
The Sunlight reflected so dazzlingly
from the flat metal stretching around
them that they could not see for a min-
ute, and had to wipe their watering eyes.
When Milo was able to see, he blinked
and closed his eyes again, wondering if
he were having ‘hallucinations. He tried
66
ASTOUNDING STORIES
again and realized the girl he saw was
really there, and was not a figment of
overtaxed optic nerves.
She had evidently come from the city
while Valdasc Olo-Kwar had been with
them in the gondola. Milo's eyes grew
round. Tall and graceful, she might
have been a Viking goddess, with her
long tresses of blond hair offsetting a
complexion of tawny gold. Her lips
were red and full, her nose just the
slightest bit upturned, and her eyes
large and dreamy.
“My daughter,” said Valdasc Olo-
Kwar. “Daveena Olo-Kwarine.” He
introduced the two scientists. Milo im-
pulsively bowed from the waist, caught
her half-extended hand, and kissed it
with archaic ceremony.
Dumont suddenly darted away to ex-
amine their torn gas bag, which lay in
a crumpled heap fifty feet from the gon-
dola. Milo followed and pursed his lips
at the tremendous gash in the bag’s top
surface. “But it’s not hopelessly be-
yond repair,” said Dumont. “Perhaps
later we can get these people to help
us fix it in some way.”
Both the gas bag and gondola had
landed at almost the very edge of the
enormous metal plate which upheld the
city Ijeyond. Dumont and Milo shud-
dered a bit at the thought of their nar-
row escape. Below, over the edge of
the metal, ranged the dizzying vista of
bottomless depths. Cloud banks were
visible miles below. Beyond that was
nothing but a hazy patchwork that
seemed to be the face of a planet thou-
sands of miles away. The two men
drew away from the edge and rejoined
Valdasc and his party.
VALDASC OLO-KWAR took Du-
mont by the arm and led the way to the
city. Leaping to the opportunity, Milo
fell in step with the girl Daveena. The
rest of the party followed behind. Milo
hardly noticed that they were travers-
ing a smooth, unbroken surface of metal
that seemed to fringe the city on all
sides, disappearing in his vision behind
the buildings to right and left. He could
not keep his eyes off the girl.
Milo wondered how to start a con-
versation, but the girl took the initia-
tive. “You are from the surface
world ?” she asked, with a trace of won-
der in her voice.
At her further questioning, Milo ex-
plained how they had penetrated to nine-
teen miles with their balloon and then
met disaster, their death plunge miracu-
lously broken soon after.
“We heard the noise of your land-
ing last night,” said the girl. “It was
a dull thud. We. had no idea what it
was, though we thought it might be a
meteor. Then this morning we looked
down from the tower and saw your
strange ship. We became quite ex-
cited, since it is the first time in our
history that any one from the surface
world has visited our city. It is quite
thrilling to talk with you, knowing you
to be from that great, strange world
eighteen miles below us. We feel as
though we are in a world of our own
here.”
“You really arc. The surface world
knows nothing of your beautiful city,”
said Milo gallantly. He went on dar-
ingly, “Nor does it know 7 that one of
the most beautiful women in the universe
lives here !”
He had no idea how the girl would
take this. She smiled pleasantly. “I
like you,” she said simply. Then she
frowned a little. “Even though your
people have such a bad reputation.”
Milo had no time to ask for an ex-
planation of this enigmatic statement.
They had reached the nearest of the
buildings. They passed through an arch-
way of sparkling facets and on into a
shaded corridor that was a relief from
the burning Sun. The interior archi-
tecture was as bizarre as the exterior.
The corridor curved smoothly and, by
some wizardry of wall design, it seemed .
QUEEN OF THE SKIES
87
to undulate up and down, though the
floor was level underfoot. Softly glow-
ing lights came from hidden niches.
Valdasc, in the lead, stopped in the
middle of the hall. Milo noticed for
the first time that all the others except
Daveena were gone. Suddenly the floor
underfoot moved. Milo involuntarily
clutched for Daveena’s hand, which she
gave him smilingly. Dumont was be-
ing steadied by Valdasc. The two me-
teorologists vaguely realized that the
ten-foot section of corridor in which
they stood was rising rapidly and sound-
lessly, like an elevator.
“This is what may be called a levitat-
ing corridor,” explained Valdasc. "All
our buildings are equipped with them
profusely. It is too complicated to ex-
plain now, but they are motivated by
an antigravitational principle. You are
being taken to a room where you will
sleep, as I think you are tired.”
Milo suddenly realized he was
strangely tired, though he had just had
a night’s sleep in the gondola. Dumont’s
face also showed a haggard weariness.
“It is a reaction to the sudden change
of metabolism,” continued Valdasc.
"After a long sleep, you will feel much
better. Here we are.”
The corridor section came to a smooth
halt, rotated slightly on its shorter axis
and settled snugly into place. It now
connected at one end to a curving hall
and at the other to a door whose latch
Valdasc turned. He ushered them into
a large, ornate room with two couches.
He stepped to a small end table between
them and called attention to two switches
on it. One was for artificial light. The
other controlled a mechanism in the
walls which, like Venetian blinds, would
either shut off outside light or admit it.
Tbe walls themselves were transparent.
Then he pointed out a closet door and
suggested that they try the clothing it
held, next morning.
"We will leave you now to a needed
rest,” Valdasc said. “When you awaken,
pull the cord near the couches. Come,
Daveena.”
JUST BEFORE the door closed be-
hind them, the girl turned to give Milo
a flashing smile. Then the two men
were alone. The room was unlike any-
thing they had ever seen before. A
gently curving ceiling, decorated in syl-
van scenes, swept downward on all sides
from a rounded apex. The floor, of
some yielding composition, seemed to
slope into a cup-shaped depression,
though they knew it was only a trick of
the lighting and their eyes. The sev-
eral pieces of furniture to complete the
bedroom motif were all of rounded and
graceful lines.
"Evidently these people don’t believe
in straight lines,” said Dumont. "They
have a completely curvilinear architec-
ture. Well, Milo” — he turned to the
younger man — “what do you think of all
this?”
"Chief, I was just thinking that to all
intents and purposes we’ve died and
gone to heaven!” Milo went on, half
banteringly, “Heaven is supposed to be
above Earth, and that’s just where this
is. It fits in other details. It’s beauti-
ful, spotlessly clean, and miracles hap-
pen here.”
"Would you class Daveena as a
miracle or an angel in this heaven?”
asked Dumont slyly.
Milo flushed boyishly. Then he be-
came serious. "Chief, just what do you
make of all this ?”
“I’ve found out a few things from
Valdasc,” responded Dumont. He con-
tinued. as they began undressing, at-
tracted by the invitation of the downy-
covered couches, "First of all, the ‘Kwar’
part of his name corresponds to a title
and rank of ‘Prince.’ Not a blood prince
of the ruling family, but of a princely
lineage. Thus Daveena — ‘Kwarine’ — is
a princess. They seem to have some
sort of aristocracy here.
“There are just ten thousand souls on
88
ASTOUNDING STORIES
this island in the sky, in a city of about
a square mile of area. Their local means
of conversation is by means of inartic-
ulate telepathy. Speech, to them, is
archaic. They are entirely self-sufficient
in this sky city, and have lived here for
.twelve thousand years, as you have
heard before. Thus their science comes
from a period preceding recorded his-
tory. Their origin, if it is known at all,
must be known to us only in fable.”
Milo pondered this for a moment.
“Do you mean the legend of Atlantis?”
he asked breathlessly.
“That, or any other similar legend of
lost races. We’ll probably find out soon
enough," said Dumont as he crawled be-
tween the sheets with a deep sigh.
Milo whistled. “Gosh, there’s plenty
of mysteiry here. How were we able to
walk around in a temperature of sixty
below zero without freezing? I didn’t
even feel the cold !”
“That’s easier to answer,” returned
Dumont. “It’s simple enough. It’s the
result of two important things: lack of
water vapor and the thinness of the air.
Dry cold, and also dry heat, are never
felt so much as cold and heat in the
presence of water vapor. Then the rare
atmosphere conserves heat because it is
a poor conductor. With our jumpers
on here, and these people with their
baggy clothing, body heat is amply con-
served to prevent chilling.”
“Bravo, chief!” exclaimed Milo ad-
miringly.
Then both of them, enervated by the
strange lassitude of their reduced metab-
olism went soundly to sleep.
IV.
WHEN MILO AWOKE, in the
darkness, his thoughts were confused.
Then he remembered, sighed, and
turned on his back, feeling much re-
freshed. Wide awake, he mused on the
strange adventure that had befallen him
and his companion.
He heard the professor stir. “Milo,
.you awake?” came his voice. “Turn on
the lights.”
Milo reached for the studs on the end
table and twisted one for the walls to let
in outside light. They heard the slither
of hidden mechanisms, but there was no
change in the darkness.
“Must be night out,” said Milo. He
twisted the other switch. A soft glow
came into being and brightened in im-
perceptible gradations till it was strong
enough to reveal all their surroundings.
“It’s four a. m.,” said Dumont, con-
sulting his watch, which he had care-
fully wound the night before. “We’ve
had plenty of sleep.” Out of curiosity,
he felt for his’ pulse. He was almost
alarmed at the slow thudding of his
heart.
Milo was at the clothes closet, looking
over the selection therein. He dragged
out two complete suits of tight-fitting
pants, military-cut jackets, and oriental
slippers. Valdasc had gauged their
sizes pretty well and they were both
rather pleased at their appearances in
the full-length mirrors against the wall,
after they had dressed. They both felt
much better than they had the day be-
fore and found themselves ravenously
hungry.
“All we’ve had to eat since leaving
Earth two full days ago is a few sand-
wiches and some coffee,” grumbled Milo.
He jerked the bell cord Valdasc had
pointed out. A whir and a click some-
where to the side was followed by the
opening of a wall panel. From out of
the blank space revealed came a long
tray holding several dishes of steaming
foods. They were all jellylike sub-
stances, but of various colors and fla-
vors, none familiar to their palate.
“Synthetic food of some kind,” said
Dumont, dipping a long-handled spoon
into one after the other and sampling
them. “Mm-m-m; this one’s good.”
They ate gratefully.
It was while they were finishing that
89
QUEEN OF THE SKIES
a ltnock sounded on the door. Almost
immediately it opened. They were sur-
prised to see a stranger enter uncere-
moniously.
“Ah !” he exclaimed in the usual pre-
cise accent. “You are the two surface
men.” He bowed just a little. “I am
Talscon Kaj-Zan, emissary of our
ruler.”
Dumont nodded slightly. “Where is
Valdasc Olo-Kwar? Do you bring a
message from him ?”
“Oh, no,” said the newcomer. “My
business is not his business. One ques-
tion : you will not be returning to your
world very soon?”
“We see no possibility of it at pres-
ent,” replied Dumont. “Unless we can
get our gas bag repaired and filled with
gas-”
The visitor nodded, smiled secretively,
and left as suddenly as he had come in.
“Whatever was that all about?” asked
Milo, scratching his head.
They mentioned the incident to Val-
dasc when he and his daughter appeared
a few minutes later.
A thoughtful, half-troubled look came
into Valdasc’s face. “I just wonder
what that means,” he mused to himself.
Then, without offering any explanation,
he led the way to a levitating corridor
which took them upward.
THEY STEPPED OUT finally on
a small hanging balcony perched like a
crow’s nest high on a tower wall. Milo
gasped. They were a thousand feet
above the pavement level. From this
open point he saw, for the first time,
the full extent of the city. It took his
remaining breath away.
Like an opium creation of luminescent
gossamer, it spread to every direction,
glowing in all spectrum hues. The del-
icate spires and dainty minarets of the
cjty lay washed in the magic glow of
moonlight.
Milo sighed, gripped by some name-
less ecstasy. It was as unreal as the
chimera castles of a dream. He looked
up. Hanging low in the sky between
the minarets of two tall structures, pale
and faintly silvery in the deep gloom,
was the full Moon. His eyes wandered
around. There were other people on
other balconies within range of vision,
drinking in the exotic beauty of 1 the
night. Plaintive, soul-stirring music
wafted at times on the wings of the
wind. It was all utterly fantastic. Yet
it was all undeniably real. Life here,
he reflected, must be lived beautifully, to
judge by the glorious surroundings.
Valdasc Olo-Kwar motioned them to
cushioned chairs. They all sat down
in comfort. “And now,” he said, “I
will answer your questions. That is” —
he smiled — “if you have any !”
Milo nudged the professor as a signal
for him to speak for them both. “First
of all,” queried Dumont, “how is it that
you can speak our language, if you
haven’t had contact with the surface for
twelve thousand years ?”
“Through two things — radio and
telepathy,” answered the bronzed prince.
“Before your science discovered and
applied radio a few years ago, we did not
know your languages, because we re-
ceived only nonarticulate thought mes-
sages. We have telepathy instruments
that pick up and amplify thought radia-
tion in quite the same way that radio
does electromagnetic vibrations. With a
combination of radio and telepathy, it
was easy, of course, to learn your Earth
languages.”
Dumont made a mental note of the fact
that they had radio, with which he could
later get in touch with the surface, then
asked his next question: “This telep-
athy? Do you mean you’re able to tell
what is going on in the minds of sur-
face people — and of us here ?”
Valdasc laughed. “Have no fear.
Telepathy is an art. We are not able
to read your minds, simply because you
have not learned to transmit them prop-
erly. It is a function of the subconscious
90
ASTOUNDING STORIES
mind and takes much training to de-
velop. Our people can converse with
one another by telepathy because they
have been so trained, for centuries.
However, we would be able to read your
thoughts with a telepathy amplifier,
which instrument we use to pick up
thought messages from the surface.
“It may surprise you to know that
we’ve followed Earth’s history, more or
less as an amusement, by means of these
amplifiers. And also visually, by use
of telescopic instruments. For instance,
we watched the Egyptian civilization
flower through its many dynasties and
finally decay. We watched the great
Semitic upheaval that centered around
Jerusalem. We marched with the Ro-
man Legions, through mind and eye,
as they carved out their great empire.
After the dismal chaos of the Dark
Ages, we followed the rise of science,
saw it grow and blossom. We shud-
dered at the carnage of the World War.
And now — there is another war!”
‘‘You know about that?” exclaimed
Dumont, half rising to his feet. “What
is happening down on the surface ? We
must know!”
“Please be calm,” admonished Val-
dasc. “I brought with me a radio re-
ceiver, knowing you would be anxious
to hear the news.” He extracted a small
box from his belt. It had numbered
dials on its face and these the sky man
twisted slowly. Valdasc finally tuned
in a commentator’s voice, clear as a
belt.
“LATEST NEWS from the war
front. Since the defeat of Britain’s naval
fleet in the English Channel yesterday,
England is open to invasion. Alliance
troops have already been landed on the
south coast and are marching inland.
The bombing of London is still going
on. The Alliance naval fleet is already
steaming for the United States Atlantic
seaboard. Japan’s armada, after taking
over Hawaii, set out for the Pacific
coast. South America, now in the
hands of the Alliance, will be the start-
ing point of the invasion of the stronger
North America, which is now solidly
massed against the Alliance.”
Dumont’s face was gray, as Valdasc
turned off the voice. “Confound it!”
snapped Dumont. “An Alliance victory
will mark the end of democracy of any
sort. There will be military dictator-
ship after that, founded on European
principles.”
Valdasc Olo-Kwar had the wisdom
of ages in his eyes as he said, “We have
seen many and many a war from our
perch in the sky. But they are only
passing phases in the march of events.
One must take a philosophic attitude.
Viewed from up here, as a supernal god
might view it, the history of Earth is a
grand sweep toward eventual peace and
true civilization. The world below has
been a stage spread before our eyes,
all people its actors, all stirring events
its acts. We have been able to weigh
and ponder and see the workings of
fate. We have seen flashes of light in
the darknesss, ideas and schools of
thought that are on the right track.
These will grow and one day light the
darkness of men’s minds with a super-
nal brightness, like the rise of the Sun !”
As though he had conjured it up, the
Sun rose, sending its first bright beams
spearing across the city. Valdasc’s low,
even words had a soothing effect on the
two men from the surface world. For
a moment they caught the grandeur of
this age-long watching from the sfqr.
Truly the sky people must feel like gods,
floating high above Earth’s turmoil, up-
held by some miracle of science.
“Just how,” asked Dumont, “is your
city able to float up here in the strato-
sphere, in defiance of natural laws ? And
where do you get food, power, and
other necessities?”
“It is not a defiance of natural laws,”
responded Valdasc. “It is their appli-
cation. Levitation against gravity is
QUEEN OF THE SKIES
They waited breathlessly — could this truly miraculous instrument do
what they had said it could?
here produced by subtle warpings of
■what your Einstein calls space time. The
terrific power to do this warping comes
from utilization of the cosmic rays. The
round metal plate on which this city
rests, a mile in diameter, is sensitive to
cosmic radiation. It absorbs this extra-
galactic energy and converts it into an-
other energy which, to use a picturesque
term, bends space time. Gravity is
neutralized. Not completely, however,
else we would fly away. Enough grav-
ity drag is left to hold us eternally at
this certain height above Earth.
92
ASTOUNDING STORIES
“Food is quite a simple problem. Its
elements exist in the very air around us :
oxygen, nitrogen and carbon from car-
bon dioxide. This last is rather rare
up here, but exists in collectable quan-
tities. Our robot converters mold these
three elements into the molecules of
food. What small amounts of other
elements are necessary — iron, sodium,
calcium, phosphorus, etc. — are formed
from the nitrogen atom by transmuta-
tion. Robot machines do that for us,
also.
These same machines, motivated by
the endless energy of cosmic radiation,
create for us all metals and materials we
need in quantity — aluminum, diamond,
silicon, cellulose, etc. — all from the
abundant nitrogen of the air. A host
of other machines, chemical in nature,
fashion these into usable products, such
as the clothing we wear, and the build-
ing material we need for replacements.”
DUMONT STIRRED and glanced
at Milo, filled with conflicting thoughts.
What couldn’t this great science do on
Earth? At last he asked, “This mirac-
ulous science — where and when did it
originate? And your race?”
Valdasc’s eyes grew dreamy. “Think
of your fable of Atlantis. No, we are
not Atlanteans. We are of the Vik-
ing race, the race the Atlanteans
exiled to the skies. Our race
twelve thousand years ago lived in
the north, on an island just south of
Iceland, called Vikia. The civilizations
of Atlantis and Vikia grew up together,
both growing mighty in science. A ri-
valry arose that burst into war. Atlantis,
more powerful, set about to destroy
Vikia utterly, to have Earth for itself.
Doom was inevitable for Vikia.
“Our leaders tried to win a truce.
The arrogant Atlanteans, power-mad,
would not be merciful. They wanted
Earth, all of it. They laughingly told
Vikia it could have the sky. Our sci-
entists pondered this and took the only
course left — to inhabit the sky! This
city was meant to be only the first of
many which would dwell forever in the
stratosphere. But after this one had
been launched, the great catastrophe oc-
curred which sunk Atlantis, and with it
Vikia. Thus, of those two great civ-
ilizations, only this remains.”
The professor and Milo were deeply
stirred by this story of ancient rivalry
and war. Dumont was about to ask a
further question, when a figure ap-
peared in the tower doorway. It was
Talscon Kaj-Zan, suave, smiling se-
cretively. He made a low bow to Val-
dasc and Daveena and gave courtly nods
to the two scientists.
“I have the honor,” he said in silky
tones, “of conducting the two surface
men to the august presence of olir ruler,
the Kalin Zimini-Dar, at once.”
Valdasc started. “But I was to bring
them myself later ” He broke off
and snapped, “I’m coming along,
Talscon.”
There was an electrical tension be-
tween the two sky men that the scientists
could almost feel. Talscon shrugged and
led the way. Milo looked questioningly
at Daveena, but her eyes were on the
floor. A levitating corridor took their
entire party swiftly down, to the level
where inclosed transportation tubes con-
nected the various buildings. A sound-
less streamlined car, set in grooved
tracks, carried them to the most magnifi-
cent building of all, in the center of the
city.
Soon they were ushered into a re-
splendent chamber hung with chains of
flashing jewels, which rotated slowly,
bathing every corner in rainbow splen-
dor. In the center of the room was an
ivory throne, yellow with age. Valdasc,
Daveena and Talscon stepped before the
aged, wrinkled man seated there, in-
clined their heads and made a strange,
weaving salute with their hands. Then
they stepped aside and beckoned the
meteorologists forward.
QUEEN OF THE SKIES
93
Milo and Dumont stood straight be-
fore this ruler of the sky people. They
owed him no allegiance and therefore
made no obeisance. He did not seem to
notice.
"Welcome to Vikia,” droned Kahn
Zimini-Dar, in a hesitant English. "You
are the first visitors to Vikia in twelve
millennia. You are free to stay as long
as you wish. Do you like our city?’’
"We do,” answered Dumont gravely.
“We find your city the most magnifi-
cent we have ever seen or imagined.
There is nothing like it on the surface
world.”
The kahn seemed pleased. Milo
nudged Dumont. On the way there he
had whispered something in his ear.
Dumont went on, “We thank you for
your hospitable welcome. However, we
should return to our surface world as
soon as possible. Our balloon, if re-
paired and filled with hydrogen gas,
would again take us down.”
The aged man on the throne nodded
slowly. “Naturally, you wish to return
to the world of your birth. We have
already investigated the repairing of
your balloon. It will take several days
to accomplish this. In the meantime,
we suggest that you allow us to further
entertain you here in our city.” The
ruler turned his head toward Valdasc.
“Talscon has requested the pleasure of
our visitors’ company. Yet I would not
deprive you, who first discovered them,
your rightful privilege. Therefore, you
and Talscon will each be escort of our
guests from the lower world on suc-
cessive days. To-day is your day.
Talscon will have to-morrow. It is my
wish.”
Valdasc bowed at the command.
When he straightened, lie shot a glance
of suspicion at Talscon. The latter had
a look of veiled triumph in his face.
Milo already had an instinctive dislike
for the man. And when, at the door,
Talscon kissed Daveena’s hand in part-
ing, with a lingering grasp, Milo felt
his blood churning strangely.
Valdasc was frowning as they left- the
palace. Later he became more of the
genial host as he and Daveena took the
two scientists around the city.
V.
“DUMONT AND MILO began to get
some insight into the lives of the sky
people. Their social system was
grounded in aristocracy, but it was of a
benevolent sort closely approaching true
democracy. The kahn, or king, was
more a wise judge than a ruler. It de-
veloped that Valdasc OIo-Kwar and
Talscon Kaj-Zan were the two next
highest authorities in the city kingdom.
The “Zan” of Talscon’s name corre-
sponded to “duke.” There were per-
haps a hundred other titular families,
out of which the kahn appointed his
various officials. These took care of
affairs of state, while the rest of the
"common” people served in all the lesser
capacities that ran their unique little
kingdom.
With an almost completely mecha-
nized civilization, there was much leisure
in Vikia. Wherever they went they
found happy, smiling people engaged in
various sports and recreations. There
was a center of learning, where tre-
mendous stores of telepathic records
were available, teaching history, science,
general knowledge. There was no
money in Vikia. It would have been
meaningless where all their resources
were practically limitless. There was
no open quarreling, fighting, poverty or
suffering. A marvelous heritage of med-
ical science had eliminated bacterial
disease. Skilled methods of surgery
and therapy kept other ailments in
check. Their average of life before the
final death from old age was one hundred
and fifty years.
The most striking thing about these
sky people was their uniformity. Hav-
94
ASTOUNDING STORIES
ing inbred for twelve thousand years,
they were as alike as brothers and sis-
ters in physical appearance. Yet their
facial expressions were so sensitive that
there was not the monotony one might
expect. In a higher ethical plane, the#-
were as essentially varied as the grosser
classes of Earth. A rigid system of
birth control kept their death rate and
birth rate exactly equal.
But the thing that most astounded Du-
mont and Milo was the giant auditorium
wherein a packed audience viewed scenes
of Earth’s surface. Some miraculous
device mirrored with startling clarity
the details of Earthly scenes, with a re-
markable magnification that could even
reveal faces — faces eighteen and more
miles away. Valdasc explained briefly
that intricate telescopic devices, equipped
to utilize ultra-violet and infra-red rays,
were able to pierce the veils of clouds
that generally overhung Earth’s surface.
There was also a telepathic attachment
that gave the watchers a close mental
rapport with the scenes viewed. It was
a stupendous thing, this spying on a
world.
DUMONT AND MILO caught their
breath at some of the war scenes.
Talscon, the next day, took them before
a smaller television projector, in private,
and picked up a complete series of war
episodes. They saw a wave of invad-
ing gray on Britain's territory engulf
the defending brown. There was hand-
to-hand fighting, vicious, cruel. A pha-
lanx of wasplike planes battered into a
horde of craft flying the Union Jack.
Behind lumbered giant bombers, to drop
their destructive burdens into the heart
of great London. The four-day inter-
mittent bombing had not vet reduced
that great city. Antiaircraft guns still
spat venomously from camouflaged bar-
ricades, bringing down scores of the at-
tacking wasps.
“Talscon,” said Milo suddenly, “why
are you showing us all this? Valdasc
has always dissuaded us from thinking
or talking too much of the war. Why
are you doing the opposite ?”
“Valdasc!” said Talscon with a slight
sneer. “We think differently, Valdasc
and I. Valdasc says to let the war go
on. I say to stop it !"
“But can you ?” gasped Milo.
Talscon seemed about to say more,
but instead shrugged his shoulders non-
committally. The two scientists became
more and more puzzled in the next, six
days. They inquired about their bal-
loon and were told vaguely that it was
being repaired, but was not yet ready.
They were not allowed to see.it. Nor
were they allowed .to use a radio trans-
mitter, to inform their ground crew of
their strange predicament. They be-
gan to realize that they were being
caught up in something significant in the
sky city.
Talscon, on the days he was their
guide, seemed anxious to impress them
with Vikia’s power resources. He
showed them the many humming ma-
chines which extracted energy from the
cosmic rays, He pointed out with pride
the robot converters which used for raw
material the nitrogen atom and created
from it countless products. He took
them to control rooms where myriad
clicking relays handled Gargantuan
energies.
Valdasc, on the other hand, told them
more and more of their smooth social
system, their general happiness, their
peace and quiet.
Each night when they went to bed,
they talked over things, and were more
puzzled over just what their presence
meant in this city of the stratosphere.
They began to get somewhat irked.
“Do you know, chief, the word
‘guests’ is a politer form of the word
‘prisoners.’?” stormed Milo the eighth
night they were there. “We can’t find
out where our balloon is. We can’t
radio Earth. We can run all around
the city, just so we run around with
QUEEN OF THE SKIES
95
appointed guides. What’s behind it all?
Are we sort of guinea pigs in the hands
of a superrace?”
An hour later they were no closer to
any reasonable explanation. As an aft-
erthought, Milo said, “Another thing
that beats me is why this big, lighted
city hasn’t been observed from Earth’s
surface.”
Dumont was ready with an explana-
tion. “Big though it is, it’s only a pin
point at eighteen miles. At night its
lights shoot outward from Earth, only
a faint diffused glow revealing itself
Earthward. It must have been sighted
in telescopes at various times by aston-
ished people, but probably never twice
in the same place, or by the same per-
son. Besides, I have a faint suspicion
they maneuver this thing around. I
seem to sense a change in motion at
times. Perhaps they always hide be-
hind cloud banks.”
"Why?” Milo was thoughtfully un-
dressing.
“I don’t know. But if they are
averse to having their presence known
on Earth, they’ll have to take it and
like it in a few years, when rocket ships
are developed to fly the stratosphere.”
Milo snapped his fingers suddenly.
“Say, chief, I think you’ve hit some-
thing there. They’re afraid, maybe, to
have contact with Earth, but see they
can’t escape it. To-morr-ow I’m going
to ask Valdasc an important question.”
“Is it about Daveena?” asked Du-
mont. He knew that his young friend
had fallen madly in love with her.
Milo growled a negative, but dreamed
of the blond Viking girl.
VI.
TRUE TO HIS PROMISE, Milo
asked Valdasc his question the next
morning. “Have you any means of
lowering, or controlling the motion of
this city of yours, Valdasc?”
The prince of the sky people started.
“Has Talscon — — ” he began, and
stopped. Abruptly, he changed the
subject. “To-night,” he announced, “we
have an audience before the kahn. In
the meantime, let me show you our
astronomical observatory.”
They had a telescope which probed
deeply into the void. The daylight did
not seem to affect it. Its incredible
powers were able to pierce the thick
mists of Venus and reveal scampering
forms of savage life in the endless
swamps. Mars and Jupiter were not
in the sky, but Saturn revealed itself as
an abode of life. Shining monsters that
seemed to be armor plated with metals
fought one another in demoniac ferocity.
The rings were laid bare as a legion of
Tom Thumb planetoids. The various
moons showed few signs of life in their
lunar jaggedness. The all-seeing eye
showed Pluto next, as a bleak wilder-
ness without end.
The two surface men were amazed at
the revelations and realized more than
ever what a superscience had built this
city. They asked many questions, but
Valdasc seemed preoccupied. Daveena
did her best to make up for her father’s
negligence.
Milo began to tell her much about
the surface world, and in the telling be-
gan to realize what a difference there
was in the two civilizations. Here was
peace, contentment and spiritual sim-
plicity. Down below was struggle,
chicanery and bawdiness. Life in Vikia
was lived as beautifully as the city was
beautiful.
They went to the kahn’s palace after
a meal together. He was in the same
chamber and on the same throne. He
looked the one hundred and fifty years
of age he was. Talscon was there,
crafty-eyed and smiling.
After a few polite inquiries into their
health and enjoyment, the king cleared
his throat, looked from Talscon to Val-
dasc, and spoke solemnly: “I have this
day come to an important decision. For
96
ASTOUNDING STORIES
twelve thousand years we have refrained
from interfering in any way with surface
affairs. Perhaps we have been wrong,
since we had the power to stop war at
any time. We will put it up to the two
beings most affected of any of us in
Vikia. Would you, Professor Dumont
and Milo Gibson, wish to see the war
that is now defiling your world
stopped ?”
Milo looked at Dumont, and Dumont
looked at Milo. Then Milo yelled,
“Whoopee! We certainly would, kahn,
old boy!”
Dumont nodded his head vigorously,
unable to trust his voice. They believed
the sky people’s ability to do this thing
without question.
Valdasc’s voice rang out suddenly. “I
do not think that would be wise ! My
worthy friend Talscon may think so,
but I do not. Such an act would be of
questionable merit ! Earth must fight its
own battles!”
Valdasc and Talscon measured one
another with fierce eyes. Then Talscon
turned to the two meteorologists. “The
king has asked you a question. Do you,
or do you not, want the war stopped?’’
Dumont gave Valdasc a frigid glance
and stepped away from him.
Milo stood indecisively for a moment,
glanced helplessly at Daveena, and then
joined his companion. Valdasc’s shoul-
ders seemed to sag. Daveena avoided
Milo’s eyes.
“We certainly would want the war
stopped.” said Dumont. “It is a sense-
less, mad slaughter of human life and
waste of human ingenuity. Victory on
either side is meaningless. If you can
stop the war, stop it !”
“Talscon,” said the kahn imperiously,
“to-morrow you will take the surface
men to the ray chamber. Valdasc, you
are not to interfere.”
That was all. They filed out of the
throne room silently. Valdasc and Da-
veena left with politely murmured fare-
wells. Talscon conducted the visitors
to their room. “You see,” he said be*
fore lie left, “I have been your friend
all the time. Valdasc would rather see
your people kill each other for a month
or so — for entertainment!” He left,
smiling benignly.
Milo kicked off his slippers sullenly.
“I don’t believe that,” he muttered,
“about Valdasc. Nor do I trust Tal-
scon. I wish we’d given Valdasc a
chance to explain himself. Still,” he
said, “why should we oppose a humani-
tarian measure like that?”
Dumont shook his head. “No use try-
ing to figure these people out, Milo. We
can only be sure of one thing, that stop-
ping the war— however they can do it,
but I’m sure they can — is a great and
wonderful thing. If some inexplicable
fate landed us here just to bring about
that one thing, we can be satisfied.”
Yet Milo could not forget the hurt
look in Daveena’s eyes when he had de-
serted the side of her father.
DUMONT AND MILO did not try
to understand the mysterious weapon
that Talscon showed them the next day.
It was contained in a chamber hung be-
low the huge metal plate which upheld
the city, like the gondola of a Zeppelin.
Its entrance was in the courtyard of the
castle, through a kiosk with a locked
metal door for which Talscon had a
key. A steel ladder took them ten feet
below, to the roof entrance of the gon-
dola. The powerful hum of some name-
less energy sang through the room as
Talscon applied his hands to the levers
and controls.
“This weapon was originally made,
twelve thousand years ago, to protect us
from possible attack by our enemies, the
Atlanteans, in case they revoked their
grant of the sky to Vikia. It is simply
a beam of energy that paralyzes a human
being, to any degree wished. No enemy
can approach Vikia from below, at least
not without being paralyzed. Its range
and power are almost limitless. It can
QUEEN OF THE SKIES
97
reach to any portion of Earth visible.
With the weapon of peace, I will single
out all warlike activities on Earth’s
surface and paralyze the combatants,
for a full day. Now, how much
paralysis would you suggest, and where
shall I start? We are at present hov-
ering over America’s Pacific coast.”
“Start right here,” said Dumont.
“Paralyze them to the extent that they
can just barely crawl around. So that
they can’t handle guns, but can take
care of their personal needs.”
Talscon nodded and touched a stud,
then a dial. On the silvery surface of
a slowly revolving drum, a scene sprang
into view, of dancing blue ocean. Tal-
scon twisted the dial and they seemed to
rush over the water. Then a cloud of
smoke came into view. The telescopic
eye pierced behind it and discovered a
Japanese and American fleet, both vis-
ibly battered, still pounding away at one
another. Talscon manipulated his con-
trols, till the entire battle scene was
contained in a numbered circle on the
drum.
“Now!” he said, jerking a lever. A
deep reactive hum sounded somewhere
in the room, but that was all. Dumont
and Milo waited breathlessly. Could
this truly miraculous instrument do what
it was supposed to do? Quite suddenly
the cannon belchings stopped in that
battle scene. In a few minutes the smoke
began to clear away. The ships began
to wallow aimlessly.
“That’s that,” said Talscon in deep
satisfaction. “Now where? I can move
our city anywhere you wish, using
Earth’s magnetic field as a medium of
motion.”
“To the Atlantic seacoast,” sang Du-
mont. “We’ll stop this bally war, we
will !” He was elated at the thought.
Some Titanic power caught at the
floating city and moved it eastward at an
accelerating pace. Talscon had already
sent a warning up to the city, so that
no one would be caught out in the open
AST— 7
in a terrific wind. In two short hours
the drum pictured the coastline of Cape
Cod.
“Good Lord !” gulped Milo. “They’re
bombing New York!”
The Alliance fleet was hurling its
shells into the cubistic mass of New
York City. Several buildings were
down. Milo could picture the mad
scenes in its crowded streets.
“For Heaven’s sake, hurry!” cried
Dumont, shaking Talscon by the shoul-
der.
The sky man played with his magic
weapon and put a stop to it in five min-
utes. It seemed like a dream to Milo
and Dumont. They went next in the
Caribbean and stopped the dueling of
fleets there, then across the wide At-
lantic to England. Here Talscon
worked till dark, limning front after
front in his circle of paralysis. Britain
had been a beehive of invasion at every
part of its coast, at noon. By dark it
was as quiet as Sunday afternoon.
Talscon tuned in an Earth announcer
after it was over. His voice a ragged
shred from excitement, the commentator
was saying, “Unbelievable, but true. No
one knows why, but almost every unit
of war on both sides of the Atlantic is
mysteriously out of commission. It is
rumored to be some sort of paralysis.
Is this some dread plague, or epidemic,
that has come in the wake of war ? How
long will it last? Will the powers rush
fresh troops into action? No one
knows !”
The next day, a close check-up with
the vision instrument revealed that fight-
ing had recommenced in various places.
The belligerents had evidently taken it
as a strange, but natural, event and or-
dered their now-recovered men back into
action. Talscon snarled as he said, “This
time I’ll give them a dose that will last a
week !” He went over the same ground
he had the day before, in reverse order,
again silencing the cannon, quieting the
war forces. When he had finished this,
98
ASTOUNDING STORIES
he straightened up with a terrible look
in his eye. The two days of playing
with godlike forces had brought some-
thing out in him.
‘‘Those puny things !” he shouted. “I
have them all under my thumb. If they
dare to start their petty little war again
now ”
He left it unfinished, but Dumont and
Milo were glad to get out of his pres-
ence. They went to their rooms, rather
stunned. They had seen something in
these two days that shook their very
souls : a demonstration of illimitable
power.
THEIR NERVES were so fagged
that they jumped when there was a soft
knock on the door of their private
room. Daveena stepped in. Milo
stood, embarrassed.
“Well?” said Milo wonderingly.
The girl came forward. “Milo, listen
to me. You’ve got to. You don’t know
what is going on. You were unfair
not to let my father explain himself
about this war matter. I’ve sacrificed
my pride to come here, and we Vikings
are very proud people. You must come
and see my father. Perhaps this can
be straightened out.”
Milo answered the appeal in his heart
more than in his mind. He dressed hur-
riedly. Dumont hesitated only a mo-
ment and then dressed also. As the
three of them walked toward the door, it
swung open. Talscon stood there, still
with that strange look in his eye.
“So?” he drawled. “I find the princess
keeping secret rendezvous with ”
That’s all he said, for the rest was
jarred out of him by Milo’s fist on his
jaw. Talscon’s face became very sur-
prised and then he bent at the knees
and slowly crumpled.
“Come on!” said Milo grimly. "I
want to get at the truth of this thing,
and your father is the only one can give
it. I see that now,”
Levitating corridors took them to the
rooms of Valdasc Olo-Kwar in the same
building; The prince of the sky people
had been staring moodily out of a win-
dow. He turned in surprise as his
daughter entered. Then his face
changed and mirrored a frigid aloofness
as he saw the two men behind her.
“What do you want of me ?” he asked
coldly. “I who allow your people to be
slaughtered without lifting a finger?”
Dumont and Milo both flushed.
“Maybe we’re wrong about that,” re-
sponded Dumont. “Knowing so little of
things here, perhaps we have not seen
things in their true light. We would
like to hear the truth from you.”
Valdasc looked from his daughter to
the two meteorologists stonily. Milo
went up to him and put a friendly hand
on his shoulder. “We have wronged
you, Valdasc,” he said earnestly. “For-
give us. We do not trust Talscon. We
have come to you.”
Aware of their deep sincerity, Val-
dasc hesitated no longer. He waved
them toward chairs, and began speaking
when they were all seated.
“Talscon has apparently done a great
and noble thing, stopping the surface
war. But his motive behind it is not so
altruistic. He wanted only a chance to
test the paralysis weapon, which has
never been used in our history before.
He played upon the kahn’s feelings, and
upon yours, to get the chance to see how
effective the weapon could be. Now he
is sure it works. And now he is sure
he can become the conqueror he wishes
to become !”
Dumont and Milo started. “Con-
queror?” they echoed.
“Yes,” continued Valdasc, his eyes
blazing suddenly. "Talscon dreams
great dreams. I have detected his most
secret thoughts. He realizes that with
our superior science we could become
rulers of Earth — but not beneficent
rulers. In Talscon’s conception of it,
it would be tyranny ! A worse tyranny
QUEEN OF THE SKIES
99
than any Roman or Hun overlordship
was in history !”
Valdasc went on, groping for ex-
pression. “I have many things to say,
and so few words to say them with. If
you knew telepathy, it would be easier.
However, we sky people have realized
for a long time that we have a great
moral responsibility toward Earth. We
can bring it chaos or enlightenment. For
twelve thousand years we have not taken
a single step either way, content to take
the easier course of nonintervention. But
with the recent rise of science on Earth,
it has come to mean an eventual meet-
ing of our two civilizations.”
He hesitated before he went on.
“Therefore, it was imperative that we
make a choice of procedure. In recent
times, two factions have arisen here in
Vikia. One faction, led by Talscon, be-
lieves in subjugation of Earth before it
can become strong enough to threaten
our safety and peace. The other fac-
tion, led by myself, hopes to affect a
permanent alliance with Earth. The
landing of your gondola here has be-
come of great significance to us of Vikia.
To Talscon and his group it means the
threat of future struggle. To me it
means that in a few more years, when
your world has achieved regular strato-
sphere flight, perhaps in rocket ships, we
will form a truce with Earth and dis-
tribute our science freely. And with it,
our philosophy of peace, developed over
a period of twelve thousand years. Thus
we will benefit Earth and establish ever-
lasting peace between us.”
“I SEE !” breathed Dumont slowly.
Milo stared from Valdasc’s noble face to
the lovely one of Daveena and wondered
how he could ever have mistrusted them
in the slightest.
“Do you see also,” continued Valdasc
tensely, “why I had to be heartless, as it
seemed, about not stopping the war?
Perhaps it would be a good thing, if it
stopped there. But one thing leads to
another. I knew it would start a chain
of events, and in the wrong direction.
Talscon now knows the power in his
hand. He is a strange, warped man,
brilliant, but ruthless. He will now try
to win favor to his scheme. He will
glibly dupe thousands of others as he
has his followers, and eventually swing
Vikia toward his goal. When our pres-
ent arbiter ruler dies, the succession will
rest between — Talscon and myself! By
popular choice ! And Kahn Zimini-Dar,
being very old, may die any day, any
minute.”
There was silence in the luxurious
chamber for a while, as Dumont and
Milo tried to grasp the implications of
this tremendous situation — a situation
unfolding eighteen miles above a world
that did not even suspect the presence of
anything above it — one that would echo
down the halls of history, for better or
for worse.
Here in this miracle city of supersci-
ence were two men of destiny : one who
wanted to preach the beauty of life, as
they knew it, to a chaotic, warring world,
bringing it the peaceful philosophy of a
mellowed civilization ; another, who
wanted to shackle Earth with the il-
limitable power within his grasp.
The two meteorologists were a trifle
dazed. Suddenly Milo asked a ques-
tion that had been bothering him : “Does
Talscon have the means of lowering this
city to Earth and carrying out his plans
of conquest, if it so came about?”
“That great secret, because of its im-
portance, has been recorded only in one
place: in an indestructible belt worn by
each kahn all through his life. I have
been privileged to see it, but of course
not the secret of its hidden pouch, which
gives directions for finding and manipu-
lating the secret controls, which can
raise and lower our city. The belt
passes from kahn to kahn. They are
sworn never to give out the secret un-
less a sufficiently great emergency re-
sults. In twelve thousand years, such
100
ASTOUNDING STORIES
an occasion has never arisen. But if
Talscon succeeds to the throne ”
Valdasc broke off, sighing. “You see,
my friends from the. surface world, what
problems weigh my mind. The crisis
may not come for some time, perhaps
not for years, till the kahn dies and Tal-
scon and I match wits for succession to
the throne. I ”
At that moment there was a hurried
knock on the door. A wild-looking face
looked in, caught sight of Valdasc, and
hissed, “The kahn is — dead!’’
Valdasc turned white beneath his
bronze skin and swayed a little on his
feet. He looked at each of the others
as though wondering if they had heard
-the same thing. Then he turned, ran
for the door, and was gone.
VII.
THE NEXT NIGHT Vikia, the
city of the sky, was humming with ex-
citement. There was something of the
feeling, to Dumont and Milo, of a presi-
dential election night in their world. For
the choice of the people of Vikia was
to determine who should be the next
Jtahn. It was all conducted, however,
without the general confusion of a sim-
ilar Earthly occasion. There were no
parades or demonstrations, no stump
speeches, no meaningless babble. Vikia
set about quietly and staidly to elect its
.next judge ruler, who would reign for
the rest of his life. The celebrations and
ceremonies would come later, after the
important work was done. Talscon and
Valdasc had long been the accepted suc-
cessors. It remained only to choose be-
tween them.
But in that simple choice, strangely
enough, rested the fate of Earth. The
people of Vikia realized it, yet to them it
did not make much difference. In the
past decade or so, with the rapid rise
of Earth science, it was realized quite
generally that Vikia would have to tear
away the cloak of isolation. It was just
a question as to how to go about it. And
therein lay the choice between Talscon
and Valdasc.
Besides Valdasc and Daveena, only
Dumont and Milo knew of the critical
situation. Before the evening’s activ-
ities started, they spent an hour together
on a high, hanging balcony. While Du-
mont and Valdasc discussed the situa-
tion gravely, Milo and Daveena looked
together over the glory of the city. The
bright moonlight sparkled from a hun-
dred thousand facets and suffused the
scene with a glow of prismatic color.
“I wish I lived here,” said Milo sud-
denly, sighing. He looked at Daveena.
“May I ask a question?” he went on.
“Does Talscon mean anything to you —
as a suitor ?” Milo felt he had to know
about that, since he had noticed Tal-
scon’s attention to her and a certain air
of intimacy.
Daveena’s face held a queer look.
“No,” she breathed. “And yes! I do
not care for him, but he does for me
and wishes to marry me. I can only
say one thing more. If Talscon is elected
kahn to-night, I will have to marry him,
for my father’s sake. For then, through
me, he will perhaps be able to guide
Talscon away from his most disastrous
ventures.”
Milo’s thoughts began to whirl. It
all depended on the election, then! He
could do nothing about it but wait. This
personal matter of his had passed out
of his hands as much as the meaning of
their presence here in Vikia. Milo was
quite bewildered at the way fate had
twined the strings of their lives.
Presently their party went below, to a
stately room of the palace, which was a
broadcasting studio. Valdasc and Tal-
scon were to be permitted each one hour
to make a “campaign” speech, this night
of the election, in accordance with cus-
tom.
Talscon, suave and confident as usual,
smiled with seeming friendliness toward
Valdasc as he rose. He gave a courtly
QUEEN OF THE SKIES
101
nod to the two meteorologists. Milo
wondered that the man had no ani-
mosity for the blow he had given him
the night before. Then Talscon turned
before the vision-thought projector and
began his “speech” in the intricate telep-
athy language of the sky people. Du-
mont and Milo sat there on pins and
needles, wondering what strange thing
was shaping itself here. All they could
do was watch his expressions, which
ranged from lofty exaltation to faint
glimmerings of craftiness.
Valdasc seemed to get nervous after
a while. Evidently, Milo surmised Tal-
scon was making a very good speech
with which to influence the voters toward
himself.
SUDDENLY Talscon’s voice burst
out, “And now I will speak as well as
telepathize, for the benefit of the two
surface men who are here with me. I
repeat that Vikia is all-powerful, as
proved by the effectiveness of our para-
lyzing weapon. It is apparent also that
the surface people do not know how to
run their world. For several centuries
these descendants of the Atlanteans, in
central and southern Europe, and in
America, have failed to bring any rea-
sonable orders out of social chaos. They
periodically drown their culture in their
own blood. On the other hand, the Vik-
ing descendants of Scandinavia have
proven their pacifism.
“It is our duty to our Earthly brethren,
now that we have ended their petty but
vicious little warfare, to guide them in
the paths of future glory — the glory that
was once Vikia’s ! We must go to Earth
and become its rulers, for that is our
rightful heritage, as well as our duty.
That the surface people will welcome
us has been exemplified by the two mem-
bers of that race now present. For it
was their request, to our late kahn, to
stop the war which tore their hearts
while it was tearing their world below.
“If I am elected, which rests in your
hands, people of Vikia, I promise to
make immediate plans to descend to the
surface world and undertake its re-
form!” Talscon sat down, eyes gleam-
ing.
“Conquest, not reform, is the word
he meant,” whispered Valdasc. “He
made a stirring speech. He was clever
enough to play on their emotions with
talk of Vikia’s past glory. I think the
man is a little mad now with the thought
of power. Inkar protect us if he is the
people’s choice.” He rose. “I go now.”
Daveena pressed her father’s hand,
encouragement in her eyes. Dumont
murmured heartfelt blessings. Milo said,
“Good luck!”
For almost an hour only Valdasc’s
mobile, sensitive face was an indication
that he was pouring out his soul into the
ether. The two surface visitors never
knew what he said, for none of it was
spoken. Valdasc finished and then came
a surprise. One of the broadcasting of-
ficials handed Valdasc a document. He
looked it over. It turned out to be a
telepathic petition, hastily recorded,
from hundreds of sky people who wanted
the two men from Earth to give their
view of the matter. Valdasc told them
about it with a hopeful smile.
Dumont did not seem to favor the
idea and finally his shyness overcame
him entirely. He declined to speak. But
Milo strode up to the microphone with
his jaw set grimly. “People of Vikia,”
he began, and thrilled to the thought
that every soul in the city was listening.
“You live in an incomparably beautiful
city. And your manner of living is
something approaching our Earthly ideal
of life after death. Do not sacrifice this
all of a sudden. If you plunge your-
selves into the far different and actually
primitive mode of life of the surface,
either as conquerors or missionaries of
a new life, you may destroy this ideal
you have set up. Rather leave it as an
example for Earth to follow.
“Let Earth come to Vikia, as a pil-
102
ASTOUNDING STORIES
grim to a shrine. Earth people learn
better by example than by force, as its
history shows. The professor and I are
only the first of future visitors from
below. Others will come and be as
astounded and pleased as we are at what
we have discovered. I would like noth-
ing better than to live here all the rest
of my life. You will be a shining light
to Earthly civilization. And that is what
Earth needs, a light to guide its way.
This is the better course of establish-
ing relations with the surface world. Fol-
low your prince — Valdasc Olo-Kwar!”
Valdasc thanked Milo profusely, as
he returned from the microphone, but
Milo’s best reward was one of Daveena’s
sweetest smiles. Also the dark look he
got from Talscon somehow made him
feel gratified. If he had thrown a wrench
into his plans, he had done well. Ap-
parently lie had.
THE “ELECTION” returns, carried
by a super-rapid telepathic pick-up, were
completely tabulated two hours later and
showed a distinct victory for Valdasc
Olo-Kwar. The prince of the sky peo-
ple, now their elected king, smiled in a
Cjuiet, relieved way and then stepped to
the microphone to give a short speech
of gratitude for his people’s faith and
trust in him.
Talscon Kaj-Zan, the losing man,
arose with studied indifference from his
seat across the room. His face showed
he had been under a terrific strain. Now
he looked haggard. His face darkened
as he looked across at Milo. He seemed
about to approach him. Instead he left
the room, darting him a venomous
glance.
“That fellow’s up to no good,” said
Dumont ominously. “He’s got it in for
you, Milo.” Milo shrugged but felt
vaguely uneasy.
When the few ceremonies of that night
were over, Valdasc asked the two me-
teorologists to accompany him, if they
wished, to view the dead kahn’s body.
It was a time-honored custom for the
newly elected kahn to pay homage to
the body of the deceased ruler whom he
was replacing. The room containing the
body was one of the most magnificent
the two scientists had yet seen. It had
walls of golden metal and a lofty ceiling
hung with beautiful flowing draperies of
somber color. Soft, dirgelike music
filled the air. Several dozen people were
slowly filing past the silken-covered dais
on which the body rested. At sight of
their prince, however, the line broke,
leaving a clear path for him.
Valdasc and Daveena bowed their
heads before the dead king and mur-
mured some ancient words appropriate
to the occasion. Milo and Dumont,
watched, feeling something of the sad-
ness these people felt for a loved and
honored ruler. Suddenly they saw Val-
dasc start. Then he straightened up and
ordered every one out of the room, ex-
cept his party and the official guardian
of the body. When the people had filed
out, mystified, Valdasc stepped on the
dais and kneeled beside the body. He
bent his face over and seemed to ex-
amine something closely. Then his
fingers moved part of the rich clothing
from the body’s waist.
When Valdasc turned around, his face
was a mask of fury. “The king was
murdered !” he hissed. “There is a hy-
podermic mark in his neck! Talscon
did this, thinking his plans were com-
plete to become kahn. He was so sure
he even took the kingly belt and replaced
it with a false one.” His face turned
suddenly gray. “That means he, and
he alone now, has the knowledge and
means of controlling the lowering ma-
chine for the city, for it was contained
in that belt !”
Valdasc was about to go on, but at
that very moment they felt a distinct
motion of the floor under their feet. It
was a falling-away motion that each of
them recognized immediately as a rapid
QUEEN OF THE SKIES
drop downward. The city was dropping
toward Earth!
“Inkar save us !” cried Valdasc. “The
madman is sending us all to our doom !”
“Quick, where is he?” asked Milo,
grasping the prince by the arm. “He
must be stopped.”
“No one knows where he is!” wailed
the sky man, wringing his hands. “That
was the secret of the belt. The ma-
chine is probably in some secret room
of the palace, but it may take hours to
locate him. And by then ”
He broke off and shuddered, while
they could all feel their underfooting
falling swiftly away.
“Order the palace searched then!”
shouted Milo, shaking the dazed sky
man roughly. “No time must be lost.”
V ALDASC came out of a daze of fear
and unclipped a tiny instrument from
his belt. Into this he hurled telepathic
instructions to the attendants of the pal-
ace. When he looked around for Milo
again, he was gone. Somehow, Valdasc
had wanted the young man near him in
this hour of peril. Dumont, when ques-
tioned, could give no information except
that Milo had dashed out the door and
disappeared.
Milo had a hunch. It occurred to him
that the logical place for a control as
important as the one that lowered the
city on its great support. of metal must
be in the same housing that contained
the great paralyzing ray and the mag-
netic forces that propelled the city for-
ward over the face of Earth. Perhaps
that was where Talscon, following in-
structions in the belt, was diverting the
titanic forces of the floating city and
allowing it to plunge Earthward.
Milo arrived at the entrance to the
short shaft that led to the underside
gondola of the city, in the courtyard of
the palace. He found his way barred
by the metal door, securely locked. He
tossed his body futilely against it sev-
eral times and then gave up. He was
103
about to rush back to the palace to find
some one with keys to open the door,
when he remembered something. That
time Talscon had taken them to the
housing he had mentioned that there was
an emergency trapdoor in the metal
plate that formed the ground of the city.
This opening was directly over the gon-
dola housing.
Milo bent his eyes to the metal at his
feet and looked sharply around. Back
of him he heard panic-stricken cries from
the palace, as more and more of the peo-
ple began to realize that their city was
plunging toward destruction. At last
he saw it, a round ring set flush with the
surface. It had a ring handle. He
grasped this and heaved with all his
might. It took several more desperate
heaves before the trapdoor came up
with a clang. Milo looked down at the
housing and saw illimitable space be-
yond it.
He kneeled down and grew dizzy look-
ing at the awesome depths below. A
strong draft came up through the orifice,
attesting to the speed with which the
city was dropping. But this was no time
to hesitate. Milo swung himself over
the edge of the aperture and let go, with
a prayer. He landed ten feet below
and rolled to the edge of the flat roof
before he could stop himself. His eyes
looked out into the tremendous vat of
the lower atmosphere. He got to his
hands and knees and jerked at the trap-
door of the gondola. It came up easier
than the other had.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Milo
dropped himself through and into the
interior of the gondola housing. He
landed on the floor with stinging feet
and instinctively flung up an arm. A
thick bar of metal paralyzed it, wielded
in Talscon’s hands. But he had saved
his head.
Milo dodged the next swing of the
metal bar, shuddering at the demoniac
rage in Talscon’s face, and dived for
his legs. He threw the sky man down,
104
ASTOUNDING STORIES
pounced on him and began punching
with his one good arm. He pounded
at Talscon’s face till the insanity in it
was replaced by fear and pain. Then
he yanked him to his feet, gave him a
punch or two in the ribs to show him
who was master, and roared for him to
turn off the apparatus that was responsi-
ble for the city’s downward plunge.
Talscon, like a whipped dog, dragged
himself to one corner of the gondola
and manipulated several levers. With a
shudder that was felt through every atom
of the entire city above, the metal city
support cast off the fatal grip of gravity,
in several stages. A few minutes later
the city once more floated defiantly. Milo
did not loose his grip on the traitor’s
arm till he was satisfied that all was
right. Then he looked him over with
scorn.
“Talscon,” he growled, “I ought to
strangle you for trying to destroy this
.great and glorious city on your own mad
whim at being thwarted. In fact, I think
I’ll beat you up some more, just for the
good of my soul.”
The bronzed sky man, with blood
smeared over his battered face, held up
a hand. He smiled strangely. “There
is no need, man from the lower world.
I was not trying to destroy Vikia; I
meant to land the city on the surface and
then destroy the levitating controls so
that my people would have to do what I
wanted — conquer the surface world. But
you prevented me. You have won. And
I have lost.”
STILL with his strange smile, the sky
man stepped to an open window at his
back. He saluted Milo and calmly
plunged bimself head-first out of the
opening. Milo leaned out and saw the
body of Talscon Kaj-Zan, the first traitor
Vikia had known in twelve thousand
years, vanish in the mistiness below.
Later, when Milo told his story to
an awed group of the sky people, a rous-
ing cheer went up for him. Valdasc
said, “You will be made a prince of
Vikia for this!”
But Milo sought for his reward in
the heaven-blue eyes of Daveena — and
found it there.
“I’m afraid,” he whispered to Du-
mont, “that you’re going down to the
surface alone.”
Dumont grinned. “You’re telling
me?” he said, rather unnecessarily.
End of the World
An Editorial which appeared in the New York Times, August 24, 1937.
The Hayden Planetarium announces that it will show the awful end
of the world. And the particular scenario that will be dramatized is to be
found in the mathematical work of the late Sir George Darwin, amplified
by the late Henri Poincare. For inevitability and sheer terror there is no
tragedy like it. For it deals with the destruction of the moon and the
reduction of the earth to a lifeless world by forces that cannot be stayed.
Once upon a time the moon broke from the still plastic earth and
spiraled away. The earth bulges slightly more than it should at the
Equator because of the moon’s early and powerful attraction, the poles are
slightly flat, the moon is retreating, and tides are slowing down the earth’s
speed of rotation from what was once a few hours to what is now a day.
Ultimately earth and moon will revolve relatively to each other like the
balls of some colossal dumbbell tied together by an invisible rod. The
earth’s day will be longer than the month. It is then that the mechanism
of the great tragedy will be set in motion.
Slowly the moon begins to spiral back to the earth. In 36 million years
it appears twenty-five times larger than the sun and four times a year it
raises tides 650 feet high. There are tremendous pulling strains when it
comes within two-fifths of its present distance. Luna mountains topple.
There are terrific avalanches. On the earth, cracks open in which the ruins
of cities are engulfed. Terrible earthquakes shake the planet. The time
comes when the moon covers a twentieth of the sky. Masses of rock a mile
in diameter are attracted by the earth. They do not rain down on what is
left of Europe and America, but travel around the earth in orbits of their
own.
In the final act mountains crack on the moon and their fragments beat
down relentlessly to streak across the terrestrial sky as meteorites. Those
that are not wholly consumed by the permanence of an atmosphere bury
themselves with loud explosions and heat the surrounding country to thou-
sands of degrees. If any oceans are left, they boil away. The end comes
when the moon is 20,000 miles away. The sky is ablaze with white-hot
meteorites. On neighboring Venus, by that time a habitable globe, some
astronomer explains to the audience of a Venusian planetarium: “The moon
has fallen back to the earth. For centuries we have known it would happen.
What a day in the history of the universe!”
Around the earth revolves a ring of meteorites like that of Saturn —
all that is left of the moon. And the earth swims on — a blackened ball on
which oceans once heaved, air made the azure sky a delight to the eye,
green trees rustled in the wind, and man struggled up the long path of
evolution.
Is this the end? Who knows but the old planetary cinder may bloom
again? The cosmos has its cycles.
( Copyrighted by the New York Times. Reprinted by permission.)
A Surgical Error
Sounds in terms of color — and ligkt in
terms of sound
I CAME out of an endless void into
a world of intense pain and dis-
comfort. The stench of ether
brought waves of nausea. Roaring
noises and fantastic shades of color hov-
ered about me and would not be shut
out. The sharp prick of a hypodermic
needle brought grateful oblivion.
I must have slept a long time, because
all the shock and anaesthetic discomfort
had gone. Except for my bandaged
head and the dull ache in the region of
my right ear, I felt exceptionally fit.
Bit by bit memory returned and with
it came poignant relief — relief that I was
alive. Apparently the operation was a
success. The great neuro-surgeon had
frankly given me only one chance in a
thousand. That chance was worth tak-
ing because the rapidly growing tumor
at the base of my brain was intimately
associated with two of my cranial nerves,
the optic and the auditory, and it would
have been only a matter of short time
until I would have been totally blind and
deaf.
I, an instructor in the University of
Medicine, and a technician in the physi-
ology of special senses, afflicted with
blindness and deafness
You. can understand, then, the tre-
mendous reaction of relief that it was
over, and the gratitude I felt for the skill-
ful surgeon who had accomplished the
impossible. . Soon they would take the
bandage from my eyes; my incision
would heal, and I would be back at the
university attending to my beloved
routine and research.
I put my hands tentatively to my head
and ran them over my bandages. A
ghastly sinking sensation seized me.
There was nothing over my eyes! The
shock of my discovery called desperately
for human companionship — any one to
reach out to from the Stygian depths of
black despond !
I knew I was to have a special nurse
with me after the operation, so I called
to her feebly. Instantly a sickly green
light drifted before me. I lay still, hardly
daring to breathe. The green light fright-
ened me, but it brought hope of return-
ing sight.
I directed my sightless eyes toward
the ceiling and visualized my hospital
bed, the plain oak dresser by the door,
and the leaky faucet in the white enam-
eled wash basin — even the ceiling light
with the long push cord slung to my bed-
side table.
Although I could not see, I knew the
location of every piece of furniture in
my room, and every crack and crevice
in the wall paper. Why shouldn’t I?
Had I not spent the previous night roll-
ing and tossing and staring feverishly at
every object?
Strange phenomena began to intrude
upon my consciousness. By my bed
was a single window hung with a white
Venetian blind. From that direction
came a constant subdued murmur.
Another thing. Outside my room,
over the door, I had seen a signal light
when I entered the hospital. This signal
light was a boxlike arrangement of
frosted glass set in large letters and num-
bers that flashed silently on and off to
notify the house physicians and super-
visors when they were wanted. From
the direction of this signal device came
odd noises — not unlike those produced
by Walter Anton Code, M. D.
What was wrong? My thought processes seemed to be functioning
all right — but
by an iron bar striking lightly on a steel
ring!
I lay still and concentrated on the
noises from this signal device. First,
there would be a monotonous repetition
of a sound tone. Then it would cease,
only to begin again in another key.
Again I called to my nurse and again
the sickly green light permeated my con-
sciousness and faded when I ceased to
call. I became aware of splashes of
subdued gray lights in the direction of
the hall, growing brighter as they ap-
proached me.
SUDDENLY a realization chilled me
and made me doubt my sanity. Those
splashes of gray light came from out-
108
astounding stories
side my room and I could see them ! I
shrunk into my pillow as they came
closer and closer, finally fading entirely
at my bedside.
I felt the light touch of my nurse’s
hand on my forehead and was instantly
startled by a soothing flow of delicate
pastel colors of pale blue, interspersed
with staccato shades of ethereal pink.
The colors faded and her hand was with-
drawn.
What the devil was wrong? My
thought processes seemed to be function-
ing all right. Of course, there were pe-
culiar sensations in the region of my
eyes and ears, but I attributed these to
shock from my operation. I couldn’t be
blind because I saw colors. I couldn’t
be deaf because I heard sounds. And
most remarkable of all I could tell with
great accuracy from where they came.
I groped with my left hand toward
the light-switch cord on the bedside ta-
ble and pressed the button experi-
mentally. Instantly, the room was filled
with a mighty roar. It came from every
corner and beat relentlessly down upon
me from the walls and ceiling, filling me
with panicky terror.
I opened my mouth and screamed. A
jagged splash of white lightning burned
into my brain. I groped frantically for
the light switch and pushed the button.
Silence descended and I lay shivering in
cold, clammy perspiration.
Again the splashes of subdued gray
light entered my room, ceased at my
bed, and once more came the soothing
effect of the pastel blues and pinks fol-
lowed by the sharp prick of the hypo-
dermic. The subdued gray splashes of
light receded in the distance, leaving me
in a world of strange noises and sounds,
fantastic beyond belief !
I fell asleep trying to fathom this per-
plexity and awoke refreshed and in bet-
ter spirits. The splashes of gray lights
approached again ; the now-familiar pale
blue and delicate pinks reappeared and
I knew that my nurse was by my bed.
Another color appeared — a ' deep pur-
ple. These colors fluttered around me
for some time and finally ceased.
My pillow was lifted, a spoonful of
hot soup was placed to my lips. I was
hungry and took my nourishment. I
opened my mouth to thank my nurse,
but only bizarre flashes of frosty white
light came out. I stopped in a panic, but
yielded to the soothing blues and pinks.
I grappled desperately with my prob-
lem. Surely, if I had enough intelli-
gence to acquire a Ph.D. degree in
physiology, I had enough to solve my
own particular problem. I decided to
tackle the thing rationally, as I did all my
problems.
In the first place, what was my prob-
lem ? There were those splashes of
gray light when my nurse approached
me. There was something strange, yet
familiar, about those lights. What was
it ? It came to me suddenly ; the cadence
was familiar ! They resembled footsteps 1
And what caused those - pastel shades of
pink and blue ? Why the constant mur-
mur from the window, and the clinking
sounds from the light signal ?
Perspiration popped out on my fore-
head. My hand came in contact with
the light switch. I removed it hastily.
What caused the mighty noise when I
turned on the ceiling light ?
Suddenly the whole thing fell together
like pieces of a jig-saw puzzle. I was
seeing sounds and hearing light! I sank
back and tried to recall the phenomena
of light and sound.
I KNEW that the stimulus for sound,
successive air waves, is communicated to
the special sense organ, the organ of
certi in the ear and conveyed back over
the auditory nerve to the auditory center
of the brain located in the temporal
lobe.
Similarly, I knew that the rods and
cones ' of the retina of the eye receive
light or ether waves and are conveyed
A SURGICAL ERROR
109
by the optic nerve back to the occipital
lobe of the brain.
Could it be possible that in some
way the surgeon had caused a short cir-
cuit in such a manner that light waves
instead of reaching the occipital lobe
reached the temporal lobe and sound
waves were shortcircuited to the occipital
lobe?
Troubled as I was, I scoffed at ’this
idea. I knew there could be no such
scrambling of association centers without
producing trauma to the brain and my
brain was perfectly clear — or was it?
Anyhow, the tumor was not in the brain
itself. The neurologist had told me that.
It was outside my brain and intimately
associated with the optic and auditory
nerves.
Like a flash I had it ! The surgeon, in
trying to dissect out the tumor from
these nerves, had cut them ! In suturing
them back in place he had connected one
end of the optic nerve to the auditory
and the other end of the auditory to the
optic !
Thus, sound waves falling upon the
organ of corti were carried back over
the mixed nerve to the center of sight
and were interpreted as light. Similarly,
light waves falling upon the retina were
carried back over the mixed nerve to the
center of hearing and interpreted as
sounds. In other words, I was, literally,
hearing lights and seeing sounds !
Even in my bewildefment my scientific
training asserted itself and I felt a mar-
tyrlike sense of elation that my opera-
tion had disproved the ancient physi-
ological law of specific nerve energy ad-
vanced by Johannes Muller, which stated
that each sensory nerve gives rise to its
own particular sensation, whatever may
be the means by which it is excited. As
a matter of fact the law had been under
fire by several generations of physiol-
ogists, who pointed out that pain may
result from stimulation of any sensory
nerve, which fact tended to prove the
improbability of this law.
Heretofore, there had been no experi-
ment to prove the fallacy of the (aw of
specific nerve energy, and to think my
operation should be the means of dis-
proving it ! I was brought abruptly back
to the realization that regardless of Mul-
ler or any other physiologist, I was in a
predicament. How was I going to com-
municate with the outside world? It is
true I could speak, but I had no means
of knowing what I said. Bizarre flashes
of color are poor substitutes for words.
When I contemplated the probability
of transposing roaring noises into visual
images, discouragement gripped me. I
could tell the surgeon of my predicament,
but would he believe me?
Even if he could understand my prob-
lem, could he undo his error?
I clinched my jaw tightly and made a
decision. I would never let my brain be
operated upon again! The tumor had
been removed and I had escaped death.
I had better let well enough alone.
The next best thing was to learn to
live with my scrambled senses and school
myself to interpret in them sufficient
knowledge to cope with my environ-
ment. I was not worried about money
matters. An inheritance from a distant
relative had settled my economic diffi-
culties. I drifted into a troubled sleep.
The next morning I was rudely awak-
ened. My room was on the east side
of the hospital and the sun rose shriek-
ing against my window. My nurse was
at my side because I could see the pastel
shades of her voice. I shouted for her
to put down the shade and the jagged
white flash of my voice added to the
bedlam of the sunrise roar. Suddenly,
there was quiet as she adjusted the
Venetian blind. I pulled myself together
and went back to sleep.
THE DAYS dragged by. I piled up
memories of sounds in terms of color and
light in terms of sound. I learned to dif-
ferentiate the howl of sunlight from the
deep roar of artificial illumination. Water
no
ASTOUNDING STORIES
produced colors of deep-red to bright-
pink. For instance, the drip from the
leaky faucet at the wash basin pro-
duced staccato flashes of blood-red. It
was very annoying when I tried to sleep,
because no matter how tightly I closed
my eyes the flashes went on with deadly
monotony. I solved the problem by pull-
ing the pillow around my ears !
While my nurse’s voice produced
pastel shades of blue and pink, my doc-
tor’s voice was deep purple. Footsteps
were all the same — subdued gray, vary-
ing only in intensity.
One day my nurse brought a radio to
my room, thinking, perhaps, I might re-
spond to the music. I suspected some-
thing unusual, because the pastel shades
of her voice fluttered and took on deeper
tints.
She placed the radio on my bedside ta-
ble and connected it. I ran my hand
over the familiar object and experi-
mentally turned the dial. My first sen-
sation was one of extreme distaste. As
the tubes warmed and the customary
static developed, horrible colors sprayed
me with showers of muddy sparks.
After a while they faded completely
and were replaced by a symphonic pan-
orama of sheer mauve and old rose,
through which there wove a gorgeous
undertone of rich colors for which I
had no name. I was spellbound and at
the same time aware of a familiarity with
the scheme of the symphony. Evidently
my association centers must have been
stimulated by the familiarity because the
name “Chopin” came to my mind.
After a while the symphony of colors
ceased and the intermission was made
unpleasant by irregular splashes of un-
matched colors. Surely, I thought, this
is the announcer for the commercials.
The next musical selection must have
been jazz. I have never been fond of
jazz at its best, but this visual experience
was a torturing ordeal. Mere sound is
inadequate to express the sordidness and
sensualism of jazz music. The selection
came gradually to my consciousness as a
dull shade of blue that beat out a syn-
copated cadence with monotonous un-
dulations. With a flare of primitive red
that shook me from head to foot, the
theme began. I shall never forget it.
The depressing blue and raw red blended
and twisted and scorched me with a re-
lentless rhythm that made me writhe. I
must have screamed, because there was
the searing flash of jagged frosty light-
ning of my own voice and the colors
abruptly ceased.
I was sure by this time that my nurse
thought I was demented. Still there was
no change in the color of her voice. It
was as gentle and soothing as ever. It
occurred to me that even if she did think
I was demented, possibly I could enlist
her help in learning objects through this
new media. I decided to experiment.
When she brought me a glass of water I
drank the contents and held up the glass.
“What is this?” I said and tried to
ignore my own voice.
There was a single flash of blue light.
I said the word “glass” aloud.
Immediately I became elated. Al-
though her voice was a delicate blue and
mine a frosty white, there was something
similar in the intensity. I groped for a
spoon and held it up. Again the blue
light — but I detected a subtle difference.
I spoke the word “spoon” aloud and
noted the similarity in intensity.
“So far so good,” I thought. “It
seems that every one’s voice has a dif-
ferent tone which I interpret as color,
but each word has a definite pitch which
I interpret as intensity !”
I went to work and constructed for
myself a vocabulary of light words. After
a few weeks the meaningless flashes of
color took on new significance. Care-
fully trained association centers came
into play apd it was only a question of
repetition until I was able to transpose
my knowledge of word sounds into word
lights and vice versa.
A SURGICAL ERROR
111
MY NURSE was delighted when I
was able to carry on a halting conversa-
tion. “I am glad to see you getting
well again,” she spoke simply. “For a
while I was in terrible doubt.”
I smiled bitterly to myself. When
the surgeon called I had to study the
purple tones of his voice carefully to un-
derstand him.
“Can’t you see at all ?” he asked anx-
iously.
“No !”
He left orders for me to be taken out
on the lawn in a wheel chair.
Once outside a vast new world of
sight and sound opened before me.
The warm sun roared about me.
Across the street a peanut vender threw
out queer little sparklets of cheerful am-
ber from his vending machine. A pass-
ing motorman clanged his bell and yel-
low fingers of light stabbed me.
I pondered over the fact that in all the
varied colors that came to me I had not
experienced black except as a dark back-
ground. This was probably because
black is not a color, but rather an ab-
sence of ether vibrations that give rise
to the sensation of color.
We remained on the cool lawn until
the sun sank. It must have been a glori-
ous sunset, because to me it appeared as
a vast semicircle of martial music with-
out rhythm or cadence. The melody was
endless in a variety of bell-like overtones
through which there ran a tuneless ob-
bligato of rich soprano.
Finally the sun went down and silence
took its place, except for dull reverbera-
tions here and there followed by soft
hummings, which I took to be electric
lights springing up in twilight. My nurse
was by my side, evidently studying my
expression. I was conscious of the sooth-
ing flow of her pastel voice.
“Why do you study the sunset with
such rapt attention — if you cannot see?”
“I just know it’s there,” I told her
enigmatically.
She rolled me back to my room and I
went to sleep, worn out' with my experi-
ence. Days passed and I still grappled
with the problem of my strange environ-
ment — an environment turned upside
down and wrong side out. Had it not
been for the disciplinary training of my
university career and the sympathy of
my nurse I would have never conquered
it to the extent that I did.
One evening she came to me. “A
friend of mine has a car,” she informed
me, “and I have asked him to take you
riding.”
I felt a twinge of jealousy, and jerked
myself up with the sudden realization
that my liaison of blue and pink pastel
and the small slender hand that stroked
my forehead with such tender feminine
solicitude meant a great deal to me.
She guided me down to the waiting
car and propped me in the back seat with
pillows. She seated herself by me while
the young man started the car. Then
began a strange journey.
I „ ... ’ » * - . '• • , •
I HAD ANTICIPATED a tremen-
dous amount of color phenomena from
the' automobile, but I was surprised at
the almost imperceptible glow from the
engine. The motor must have been al-
most silent to them. As we drove along
the quiet street in the suburban part of
town where the hospital was located, I
was disturbed only by the street lamps
which came to me at regular intervals
with dull thuds.
It was not until we reached the down-
town district that my troubles began.
Automobiles sped by, making phos-
phorescent stirs through the velvety
darkness not unlike fish in tropical
waters at night. A traffic officer blew
his whistle and a thin streak of cold-
blue quartz light leaped at me.
As we came closer to the congested
business district the bedlam grew worse.
Brilliantly lighted signs shrieked and
snarled like angry cats. Noises and
lights came so fast I could not interpret
them. Detonations almost lifted me
ASTOUNDING STORIES
112
from the seat. Searing lights leaped out
at me.
I tried to block out the awful con-
fusion. I screamed to my nurse and
she put a soothing arm around me.
By the time we had reached the hos-
pital I was somewhat quieter. My nurse
led me to my room and I sank back on
the bed exhausted. She was beside me,
I knew, probably studying me and won-
dering what kind of mental case I had
turned out to be. I felt an utter sense
of defeat.
“Go on,” I told her bitterly, “tell me
I’m crazy!”
When she spoke, the blues and pinks
were soothing as ever and the slender
hand pushed the hair back from my
forehead. There was a new color in
the pastel shades of her voice that I had
never seen before — a delicate lavender
which almost took my breath by its ex-
quisite luster.
The visual voice, I had found, held
a far more subtle delineation of real
imeaning than the auditory one. Prob-
ably that was why I could not feel in-
terested in radio plays. The monotonous
flow of deadly color from the players was
as uninteresting as listening to a child
reading a lesson from a book.
On the other hand I could sometimes
pick up spontaneous flashes of enchant-
ing color from amateurs fluttering with
ambition, and sometimes fading into the
sickly, unhealthy yellow of discourage-
ment.
So I scintillated between hope and the
melancholy realization of my position.
“Won’t you tell me what’s the mat-
ter?”
“No!”
She left me and returned later with
the surgeon. He examined me com-
pletely from head to toes. The next
morning my nurse came in, but she
brought no breakfast. Instead she picked
up my arm and, before I knew what
she was about, jabbed a hypodermic
needle in my shoulder muscle. When I
had grown drowsy from the morphine,
a stretcher was rolled into my room.
The next thing I knew I was in the
operating room. The anaesthetist placed
the rubber mask over my mouth and
nose and strong arms restrained me. I
screamed in protest, but only the white
frosty light of my own voice mocked
me. I was sinking — sinking — and
then -
I came out of an endless void into a
world of intense pain and discomfort.
Again the stench of ether brought its
nightmare of nausea. I winced from the
sharp stick of the hypodermic needle
and drifted off into semiconsciousness,
aware only of a pale, distressed angel in
white uniform fluttering about me.
AN .SON of feverish time went by
and I opened my eyes and searched the
face of my nurse. I was not disap-
pointed — she was lovely — and so con-
cerned ! Her voice was real this time, a
tinkle of silvery chime, and tremulous
with something that brought to mind the
lustrous lavender.
“You are beautiful!” I told her, and
started at the familiar tones of my own
voice.
Light streamed in through the half-
open window. The rising sun held a
wealth of morning promise. It looked to
me like the Golden Grail must have
looked to the weary pilgrim. I stared
at the white enameled wash basin and
listened hungrily to the drip-drip of the
leaky water faucet.
“You should have told us!” she
scolded. “I would have never guessed if
we hadn’t taken the ride downtown. I
told the doctor what I suspected and he
admitted that he was worried that he
had made an error.”
I groped for the slender hand — and
found it. “And how did you guess?”
“Because you screamed that the light
was killing you and you held your hands
to your ears!”
SHIELDED CABLES
s TO AMPLIFIER,
LOUD SPEAKER AND
RECORDER.
Cosmic Ray Shields
A Scientific Article
by ARTHUR McCANN
6IEGER COUNTER TUBE
If a cosmic-ray burst smashes a few atoms to ions, the discharge
will start to give an instantaneous current.
F OR TWENTY YEARS and
more, men have been studying
the most mysterious of all the
signals Earth receives from space; cos-
mic rays. High in the stratosphere, deli-
cate instruments have been carried ; they
have been sunk hundreds of feet into
the cold waters of lakes fed by melting
glaciers, water thus known to be free
of radioactive contamination. Lead
AST— 8
stripped from the roofs of ancient
cathedrals has been hoarded to shield
the delicate instruments. From Little
America to the far north, to mountain
peaks and crisscrossing over seas, by
every possible means of travel the elec-
troscopes and Gieger counters have been
taken to plot the intensity and direction
of those signals from outer space.
Cosmic rays — and in the last few years
114
ASTOUNDING STORIES
it has become increasingly plain that
no otte yet has really studied the true
cosmic rays. The energy trapped in the
instruments has been, rather, that of
secondary radiations, rays originating in
our own atmosphere, and truly signals
originating on Earth itself. We have
been studying the mud and dust thrown
up as a shell explodes, rather than the
shell itself. And the worst of it is that
the cosmic rays themselves may never
be observed satisfactorily from Earth.
The existence of cosmic rays was first
deduced from the behavior of electro-
scopes, one of the simplest yet most ulti-
mately sensitive instruments in all the
armory of modern physics. Basically it
is no more than a ribbon of gold leaf
three inches long and a third of an inch
wide suspended at the center by a stiff,
bent wire, and protected from air cur-
rents by a glass case. In its simplicity
lies its sensitivity ; the gold leaf, so thin
as to be almost wholly without stiffness,
and practically weightless, hangs down
limply. But when a few electrons have
been added to, or subtracted from it, it
is charged, and the two ends being
similarly charged are mutually repelled,
so that the limp vanes stiffen out in an
inverted V,
The technical instruments are electri-
cally insulated to a wonderful degree;
the charge, once placed on the gold leaf,
cannot leak away, and the physicists
knew that the instruments should re-
main with V’d vanes for days. But they
did not; slowly they would collapse, as
the charge was dissipated; the mutual
repulsion died away. In a sense radio-
activity called to the attention of phy-
sicists that the charge did escape, for if a
bit of radium be brought near the elec-
troscope there is no slow leakage; the
vanes collapse like a pricked balloon.
That was studied and the answer
found easily enough. The radium was
driving out three types of radiation:
alpha particles, stripped helium nuclei;
beta rays, electrons moving at enormous
velocity; and gamma rays, true electric
vibration similar to, but far more potent
than the X rays of the day. Each of
these rays carried enormous energy
potentials ; each could so violently strike
an atom as to blast electrons from it, ion-
ize it. The ions so produced then car-
ried away the charge of the electroscope.
The effect could be beautifully con-
trolled ; a sheet of aluminum would stop
the material particles, alpha and beta
rays, and let only the gamma rays act.
A sheet of lead would stop all three
types, and prevent the collapse of the
vanes — almost.
But — radioactivity, caused those vanes
to collapse ; vanes collapse when there
is no radium, no radioactive matter
around. Was there then some ionizing
force continuously present, unvarying in
intensity with day and night, season
and year ?
There was — and that force varied
with altitude and with position on Earth.
There was a new, hitherto unguessed
force producing ions always, a force
so potent that lead screening was al-
most entirely unable to affect it. It
wasn’t radioactivity, because electro-
scopes carried away from earth (and
possible radioactive rocks) in balloons
discharged more rapidly. Electroscopes
shielded in radioactive-free lead* con-
tinued to discharge slowly, inevitably.
♦ Lead, being a decay product of radioactivity,
the dead remains of radium and uranium, might
well contain contaminating traces of these sub-
stances and their lower products. For instance :
Radium B, a highly radioactive substance, is an
isotope of lead, chemically inseparable. If that
were present in the shielding lead, as it evi-
dently could be, the shield would be the source
of the rays it was supposedly stopping. How-
ever, slightly radioactive substances would have
to be present in quantity ; only highly active
substances could, even in traces, produce effects.
But highly active substances have, by definition,
a very short life. (Radium B has a half life of but
26.8 minutes.) Very old metallic lead, then, would
be nonactive. The source of this old lead is inter-
esting. Lead roofs expand in summer heat, but
weight directs expansion downward, toward the
eaves. Winter cold contracts the metal, again
downward, producing an annual creep from roof
peak to eaves. The metal must be trimmed front
the eaves and relayed at the peak after a time.
An enduring metal, lead was used to roof cathe-
drals. Now a millenium old, the eaves trimming*
are used as nonactlve lead shielding.
COSMIC RAY SHIELDS
115
SOMETHING, some enormously
powerful radiation, was crashing its way
through to Earth from outer space. A
radiation infinitely more penetrative than
the gamma rays of radium was being
generated in outer space and pene-
trating to heavily shielded instruments.
A radiation of such stupendous power
that no hitherto-known energy ap-
proached its driving concentration. (The
energy of the gamma rays of radium
is measured in millions of volts; we now
know that the least of the cosmics repre-
sent multiple billions.)
So fiercely powerful were those radia-
tions that no adequate means of measur-
ing their energy was apparent. Lead,
capable of stopping the most powerful
radiations hitherto known seemed wholly
unable to affect this new giant-power
ray. Certainly feet of lead would be
needed to screen it out; how many feet
no one knew. If an adequate screen
could be found, and a measure of its
penetrative energy thus made, there were
formulas at hand that would enable
investigators to calculate the probable
energy potential of the new radiation.
Millikan did get an accurate esti-
mate. Evidently, the use of lead was out
of the question. Since the intensity in-
creased gradually with elevation, the
atmosphere appeared to have a screen-
ing effect, slight, but measurable. It ap-
peared to show that the radiation came
from outside. What was needed was a
sufficiently thick layer of some nonradio-
active matter.
Sea water would not do ; it is faintly,
but distinctly, radioactive. The best
estimates indicate that there is the
equivalent of 20,000 tons of metallic
radium in the oceans of the Earth. But
by sinking his instruments in the waters
of a deep lake high in mountains, made
of only very slightly radioactive rock
(practically all rocks are somewhat
active), a lake fed by the waters of melt-
ing glaciers, the effect was won.
Evidently the radiation from space
was not a uniform structure, but a wide
spectrum of energy, for its intensity de-
clined gradually as the instruments were
lowered into the clear, icy water.
Finally, there was a last fraction that
penetrated the equivalent of 16 feet of
metallic lead. The alpha rays of radium
are stopped by an inch or so of air ; the
more penetrative gamma rays by a few
inches of steel.
So much was known: an estimate of
the immense penetrative power. It defi-
nitely declared one fact, at least : the
new radiation was possessed of immense
energy. But at once a question was
raised: What were the rays, particles,
or radiation like X rays or gamma rays
of radium? Gamma rays are far more
penetrative than either of the material
particles given off by radium, electro-
magnetic radiation slides more readily
through solid matter than do particles.
It seemed inevitable that this new
radiation must consist of an immaterial
radiation of immensely shorter wave
length than even the gamma rays.
BASING their calculations on the ob-
served penetration of various other
electromagnetic radiation, and the as-
sumption that cosmic rays were of this
type, a wave length was calculated for
the new radiation. From the wave
length, by quantum relations and Ein-
stein’s mass-energy conversion formula,
a mass-and-energy figure was derived for
the new radiation. A whole life history
was drawn up. Sir James Jeans in his
“The Universe Around Us” devoted a
considerable section to the cosmic-ray
picture as it then (1929) appeared.
“The Handbook of Chemistry and
Physics,” for 1929, gave the wave length
of cosmic rays as 0.00000005 microns.
Jeans showed in his book that a quan-
tum of the wave lengths assumed would
have a mass slightly greater than that
of a hydrogen atom.
And back of all this there was that
large if. If the radiation was a true
116
ASTOUNDING STORIES
electromagnetic energy, then these
things were true — an unexpressed if in
the mind of every scientist working with
it, for it had not been proved. The
cosmic rays might still be a high-velocity
material particle, a super-super alpha
or beta ray rather than a super gamma
ray. Until that question was settled the
whole story of cosmic rays rested on a
shifting sand, an unsupported assump-
tion made by theorists.
There work could go on contentedly,
however, on many angles of the problem
— observations particularly. For what-
ever the radiation might be, whether
material or not, the observations were
facts — hard, stubborn things the theo-
ries must fit, unaltered by any shift in
theoretical opinion. Gradually data ac-
cumulated; new instruments came into
use. The electroscope lacked in some
respects; though exceedingly sensitive,
and an accurate and fundamental meas-
ure of the intensity of the rays, it was
not readily suitable to the important
work of directional observation. Noises
on a dark night are distorted out of
familiarity and meaning by the loss of
directional precision. In much the
■same way, the meaning of intensity
measurements might be lost through lack
of directional work.
The Gieger counter solved this diffi-
culty. A glass tube ^ of an inch in
diameter and 1 inch long is filled with
a gas (usually one of the inert gases,
helium or argon) under low pressure.,
Two electrodes are placed in the tube,
and a high potential impressed across
them, a potential so high that the in-
sulating qualities of the gas are almost
broken down to permit a discharge
through the tube — almost, but not quite
high enough. However, the slightest
additional impulse will start an instanta-
neous discharge. If a cosmic-ray burst,
for instance, smashes a few atoms to
ions, the discharge will start to give an
instantaneous current. A delicate ampli-
fier is connected to the tube, and the
minute current amplified to a husky im-
pulse ^hat readily works an ordinary
Veeder counter. The observer can,
then, read off the number of bursts (the
intensity of the local bombardment) as
digits neatly tabulated automatically.
That apparatus alone is not direc-
tional. But the next step is easy. A
central Gieger counter tube is sur-
rounded by a nest of similar tubes, each,
say, of an inch in diameter and 10
inches long. They are arranged like a
bundle of pencils clasped in the hand,
lying side by side. The tubes are so
interconnected that a discharge in one
tube produces no effect on the counter.
Only a simultaneous discharge in one of
the outer ring of tubes and a discharge
in the central tube — 2 discharges at the
same instant — can effect the amplifier,
and hence the counter. Thus, a ray
coming from directly overhead smashes
through the top tube and the central
tube, causing twin discharges — and the
counter clicks out the information, “One
burst from the zenith.”
THE COSMIC RAYS have been
made to tell their direction of origin. A
mechanical observer of glass and metal,
its relay clucking curiously like a well-
contented hen, records faithfully the
direction and intensity of the rays from
beyond.
More information — another step for
the observers, while theory still lagged
in a fog of conflicting facts. Now notice
this: 2 methods of detection have been
described — the electroscope and the
Gieger counter. Each depends for its
action on the same power or property of
cosmic rays; they smash atoms to ions.
Neither detects the cosmic ray; each
operates on the shattered debris its pas-
sage leaves behind. There is one other
method of detection: the Wilson Cloud
Chamber, the most powerful, single,
analytical method available in the study
of atomic structure and radiations.
Again, it is a simple instrument, so little
COSMIC RAY SHIELDS
117
and unspectacular as to pass unnoticed ;
yet the mighty Cyclotron, the huge Van
de Graff generators, all the atom-smash-
ing equipment, depends for analysis of
their results on the Wilson Cloud
Chamber and the electroscope.
The Wilson Cloud Chamber gave the
first proof of transmutation of atoms at
man’s desire. Thanks to it, the positron
was detected. By it, the penetrating
power of alpha and beta particles is
measured. It consists of a pool of ink-
stained water under a glass window, and
a small pump. When a gas is com-
pressed, its temperature is raised; when
the gas expands, the temperature falls.
When the temperature of water is raised,
more vapor leaves its surface to enter the
space above it ; when its temperature
falls the water vapor is no longer stable,
but must recondense to liquid. The
combination of those 2 simple principles,
The existence of cosmic rays was first deduced from the
behavior of electroscopes.
118
ASTOUNDING STORIES
plus 1 other equally simple — that water,
vapor, to condense, must have a nucleus,
some irregularity in the gas to condense
on — makes possible one of the most
powerful weapons of atomic physics.
For ions — smashed atoms — will act as
the needed irregularities for that con-
densation, so that a flying alpha particle,
for instance, leaves a trail of ions behind
it which immediately become coated
with droplets of condensing water. The
water droplets appear as a line of visible,
white fog against a background of the
black-stained water.
A cosmic-ray burst serves to do the
same thing; the trail of smashed, flying
atoms is marked by a thin line of the
water droplets. The cosmic ray that
cannot be photographed is made visible
by a trail of water. But again notice —
not the original cause, but only its ef-
fects, the ionic debris it leaves behind, is
detected.
In 1930, nearly 2 decades after the
first hints of cosmic rays, the great if
remained: were the rays from outside
electromagnetic radiation, or material
particles? There was one hope of de-
tecting the difference. If they were
particles, and they were charges, then
a method could be devised that might
work. Neutral particles had not been
detected up to that time — but very soon
after, the neutron, an uncharged, mas-
sive particle was detected. Being un-
charged, these particles could pass close
to atornic^neuclei without being seriously
influenced, and, in consequence had, im-
mensely greater penetrative power than
an equally massive proton going at the
same velocity. And, in consequence of
this lack of charge, neutrons were far
harder to detect. Cosmic rays might,
then, be extremely high-velocity neu-
trons.
Yet the test remained a possibility; if
an immensely powerful magnetic field of
considerable dimensions were generated,
charged particles entering it at high
velocities would be deflected from their
paths. This deflection could be ob-
served by means of the Wilson Cloud
Chamber; negatively charged particles
bending their course one way and posi-
tively charged particles shying the other.
A NUMBER of factors were involved
in this twisting, however. The greater
the field intensity, the greater the
tendency for the charged particle — by
interaction of its electric field with the
man-generated magnetic field — to be
turned aside. The longer the course the
particle was forced to take through the
magnetic field, the greater the total de-
flection, and the more readily measur-
able it would become. These 2 factors,
then, should be made as great as possi-
ble, but each implied huge, and ex-
tremely costly apparatus.
•Adverse factors were even more
numerous. The higher the speed of the
particle, the more difficult it became to
deflect it. The greater the mass in ratio
to its charge, the less easily it would
react to the magnetic field. (Thus an
electron and proton have equal though
opposite charges. But a proton has
1800 times as great a mass, and is far
less sensitive to magnetic deflection.)
The demonstrable terrific energies of
cosmic rays showed indisputably that,
if they were particles, they were moving
at immense speeds, and immense ap-
paratus would alone have the slightest
chance of appreciably distorting their
flight tracks.
And finally, if they were either un-
charged neutrons or true electromag-
netic rays, they would be wholly unaf-
fected by the most powerful, most in-
tense fields imaginable. The evident
conclusion was that a curved path, if
obtained, proved something, but a
straight path could still be interpreted
in either of 3 ways: that the radiation
was electromagnetic; that it consisted
of undeflectable neutrons ; or that it still
consisted of charged particles, but parti-
COSMIC RAY SHIELDS
119
cles moving too swiftly to be affected
by the apparatus.
But the attempt was made, with the
cyclotron-type magnet — an immensely
powerful magnet of the requisite large
dimensions. And one of the first results
of the research was not cosmic-ray
knowledge but the discovery of the posi-
tron.* Gradually however the data built
up, and it became more and more clear
that charged particles were giving the
effects attributed to cosmic rays. And
those particles moved with velocities at
the far, faint upper edge of the gigantic
magnet’s effective range.
But elsewhere, other men had been
working at the same problem from an-
other angle. Every indication of cos-
mic-ray energy attained on Earth,
whether electroscope, Gieger counter or
Wilson Cloud Chamber, depended oq
the blasting of Terrestrial atoms. Fur-
ther, we must operate beneath the
shielding, and perhaps interfering
atmosphere. Magnetic field study was
producing results, magnetic fields still
surrounded and shielded by the atmos-
phere. The ideal research should be
done with instruments and magnetic
fields outside of Earth’s atmosphere.
Remember that the magnetic field must
have two factors : intensity and size. If
you have enough size, intensity is less
important. You don’t need good brakes
to stop if you have a clear road for 10
miles ahead. And, by the gods of space,
there zvas a magnetic field that fulfilled,
ideally, the conditions they wanted !
Intensity it might not have, but size,
size on a cosmic scale! A particle
must travel 200,000 miles to cross it —
200,000 miles of constantly increasing in-
tensity, always low perhaps, but of what
importance with such astronomic size.
And, of course, that field was outside
Earth’s atmosphere, Earth’s own im-
mense magnetic field.
* See WAat are Positrons, by R. D. Swisher,
Astounding, August, 1937, page 117.
Easy and obvious — but for one thing.
The particles might come from any of
an infinity of directions, at any of an
infinity of speeds, into a magnetic field
that reached, theoretically, to infinity.
3 infinities in a row, mutually interact-
ing in, literally, an infinity of ways. To
be of any use whatever, the path of
particles plowing into that field must be
calculated, and properly understood, for
we have only the end result to go by.
There’s no Wilson Cloud Chamber out
there for us to work on.
IT TOOK a brand of mathematics so
immensely complex that it was, literally,
beyond human minds. We are only on
the edge, an edge so thin that the great-
est mathematicians of man are hope-
lessly paralyzed by the sheer immensity
of the task. Recently, however, a
mathematical weapon, as powerful in
advancing results as the amplifier has
been in its field, has come into use. The
differential analyzer, developed at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
has made possible a mathematical
analysis of some of that infinitude of
infinities — an electrical mathematician
that can, and does think in infinities as
men think in units. Calculus theoreti-
cally deals with an infinite number of
infinitely small units; the differential
analyzer does what calculus imagines.
Its units are electrons, and it consumes
and counts them only when they move
in ordered billions.
It solved much of that problem,
enough at least to show that charged
particles, whether positive or negative,
would be shunted away from Earth’s
equator by that magnetic field in curved
paths. Only those moving with im-
mense velocities would be able to drive
through the resistance of the lines of
magnetic force running from north to
south pole at right angles to their course.
The rest, more easily turned, would ap-
proach, curve, and recede from the
planet as though Earth bore a tremen-
120
ASTOUNDING STORIES
dous, like electrical charge which re-
pelled them.
At the poles, however, the magnetic
lines of force are vertical to the surface
of the planet, and parallel to the course
of incoming particles. Cosmic-ray
particles would slide down those lines
of force unhindered. Thus, the
mathematics predicted that the ray in-
tensity would be a minimum at the
equator, where the magnetic deflection
permitted only the rare, extremely high-
velocity particles through, and a maxi-
mum at the poles where any could enter.
Between, there would be a smooth
gradation of intensity.
For 20 years and more observations
had been made over all Earth’s surface ;
now these data came into their own.
Examination would prove or disprove
this theory. And examination showed
that from the equator to 50° north
and south the intensity declined as the
mathematics predicted. From 50® on
to either pole, there was almost no
change whatever. The prediction didn’t
hold.
But a second part did. Almost 100,-
000,000 miles away, the immense atomic
furnace of the Sun was active, and Earth
lies almost exactly on its equator where
the solar-magnetic field is most effective.
And the Sun’s magnetic field rules the
solar system with a grip as firm in its
way as the solar gravity is in its way.
At 100,000,000 miles, the Sun’s mag-
netic field equals the strength of Earth's
local magnetic field at 50° from the equa-
tor. At 50° Earth’s field is just strong
enough to shunt away into space a
charged particle of 2,000,000,000 volt
energy, and at Earth’s distance from the
Sun, solar magnetic power can repulse
a 2,000,000,000 volt particle. Naturally,
then, there are none of lesser power to
gain the easy entry offered by Earth’s
weaker polar defenses.
A horde of facts was clicking into
place now about this new skeleton un-
derstanding. With particle energies at
last definitely measured (previous meas-
ures had been on the basis of penetra-
tive power, a sort of second-hand esti-
mate. Now, the magnetic-field method
made possible a measurement on a basis
of fundamental, directly applicable law)
the great penetrative power the particles
displayed took on a different appearance.
Quantum mechanics had shown an in-
teresting fact: the penetrative power of
a particle increases with its velocity, of
course; but at immensely high energies,
and hence velocities, a new effect comes
into play. The particle acquires a sort
of “untouchability.” It is far less apt to
be hit, or to hit anything, than an exactly
similar but slower-moving particle fol-
lowing the same course. At those ex-
treme velocities, the penetrative power
increases out of all proportion, since they
very seldom hit anything to slow them,
and the tables of penetration drawn up
on the basis of radium-emanation parti-
cles are utterly inapplicable.
EVENTUALLY, it does hit, and
when such a particle does collide with
anything, the result is an explosion of
energy beside which radium’s inter-
atomic energy is a mild and gentle kitten.
The particles blasted from atoms struck
by cosmic radiation are driven out with
an energy, in turn, so immense that they
too obey the quantum law of “untouch-
ability,” slash through space with an
energy too great to hit other atoms.
And it is those secondary particles,
blasted from Terrestrial atmospheric
atoms, that have been studied for twenty
years in Gieger counters, Cloud Cham-
bers and electroscopes. The true cos-
mic rays have never been studied ; they
never reached our levels.
But we never thought we were study-
ing cosmic rays ; always we worked with
Terrestrial ions generated by cosmic-ray
energy. We knew we were indirectly
studying the energy from space, and
that is precisely correct; we did study
the cosmic-ray energy, indirectly though
COSMIC RAY SHIELDS
121
it might be. And since the secondary
radiations carry, in their motions, a
record of the direction of the original
particles, and in their number a record
of the original intensity, we have a cor-
rect and accurate record of both direc-
tion and intensity of the originals.
But since the Earth and the solar-
magnetic fields work on the true, original
particles, we have correct information
now concerning them:
First : the fact that the magnetic fields
deflect the particles proves that the true
cosmic particles are charged.
Second : calculations on the intensity
and distribution of the particles that do
reach Earth gives us the energy of the
originals, by a direct, fundamental
method. The slowest that can reach
Earth have a velocity corresponding to
2,000,060,000 electron-volt energy.
Third: since the secondaries that we
can observe on Earth retain the direction
of the primaries, and since even those
primaries that reach our atmosphere
have penetrated a deflecting magnetic
field, the direction of the secondaries
gives us the polarity of the primaries.
They are bent from their course in such
a way as to indicate that at least 70 per
cent are positively charged.
Finally, we have this to consider:
What intensity the cosmic rays may
reach in outer space we have no way of
guessing, for Earth . receives only the
few, strained and selected individuals
that have energies exceeding the im-
mense potential of 200,000,000 volts.
What, for instance, would be the in-
tensity of bombardment on Pluto, so far
from the Sun as to be beyond the shield-
ing influence of the Sun’s magnetic field,
and quite possibly without a magnetic
field of its own ?
Cosmic rays destroy on Earth about
one atom per cubic centimeter per
second. If that atom happens to be part
of the gene, the life determinant of a
living animal, the inheritance of that ani-
mal’s descendants will be altered, al-
tered perhaps beyond recognition. On
Earth, with the minute bombardment we
receive, the chance is btflions tp one
against it. Life has an incredible per-
sistance, an ability to adapt itself to un-
believable rigors. There are forms of
life that live in concentrated sulphuric
acid, and others that live in near-boiling
water. But whatever hardships' life
might overcome, one, surely, there is
that it must succumb to. It can adapt
itself to almost anything but this; the
loss of the power to reproduce its kind.
Our atmosphere is a futile shield
against the terrific power of cosmic
particles. Only the invisible, intangible
defenses of the Sun’s vast magnetic field,
and Earth’s lesser one protect us, make
it possible for human beings to have
human children, and not give birth to
monstrous, unnamable things.
That, by the grace of a magnetic field.
MANA
by Eric Frank Russell
which was originally scheduled for this issue, will appear in the
December issue.
v DON'T MISS IT!
OTk ™
‘Wrn^M^
v3#9Mta
>A\m8k t%BsM
Galactic Patrol
Part 111 of a great science novel
by Edward E. Smith, Ph. D.
VP TO NOW:
Law enforcement lagged behind crime
because the police were limited in their
spheres of action, while criminals were
not. Therefore, when the inertialess
drive was perfected and commerce
throughout the galaxy became a com-
monplace, crime became so rampant as
124
ASTOUNDING STORIES
to threaten civilisation. Thus came
into being the Galactic Patrol, an organi-
zation whose highest members, the
Lensmen, are of unlimited authority and
range. Each is identified by zvearing
the Lens, a pseudoliving, telepathic
jewel matched to the ego of its zvearer
by those master philosophers, the Arisi-
ans. The Lens cannot be either imitated
or counterfeited, since it glozvs zinth
color when worn by its owner, and since
it kills any other who attempts to wear it.
Of each million selected candidates
for the Lens all except about a hundred
fall before the grueling tests employed
to zveed out the unfit. Kimball Kinni-
son graduates No. I .in his class, and is
given command of the space ship Brit-
tania, which is of a new type, using ex-
plosives. He is informed that the
pirates, or Boskonians, are gaining the
upper hand over the patrol because of
a nezv and almost unlimited source of
pozver, and is instructed to capture one
of the nezv-type ships of the pirates, in
order to learn the secret of that pozver.
Kinnison is successful in finding and
defeating a pirate zvarship. Peter Van-
Buskirk leads the storming party of
Valerians — men of remote human ances-
try, but of extraordinary size, strength,
and agility because of the enormous
gravitation of their native planet — in
zviping out those of the pirate crew not
killed in the battle between the tzvo
ships.
Then the scientists get the informa-
tion they zvant. It cannot be trans-
mitted to Prime Base, however, because
the pirates are blanketing all channels
of communication. Boskonian ships
are gathering, and the crippled Brittania
can neither run nor fight. Therefore,
each man is giz>en a spool of tape bear-
ing the information and they take to the
lifeboats, after setting up a “director-by-
chance” to make the Brittania pursue an
unpredictable course in space, and after
rigging bombs to explode her at the
first touch of a pirate beam.
Kinnison and VanBuskirk land upon
the planet Delgon, and are rescued from
a horde of Catlats by Worsel, a winged
reptile, native of Velantia, a neighbor-
ing planet'. By means of improvements
upon Velantian thought screens, the
three destroy most of the Overlords of
Delgon, a sadistic race of monsters who
have been preying upon the other peo-
ples of the system by sheer pozver of
mind. Worsel accompanies the patrol-
men to Velantia, all of whose resources
are then devoted to preparing defenses
against the expected Boskonian attack.
Several others of the Brittania’s lifeboats
reach Velantia. Kinnison traces a com-
municator beam of Helmuth, who
“ speaks for Boskone,” thus getting liis
first line upon Boskonia’s Grand Base.
Six pirate vessels are captured. In
the six ships, manned by Velantian
crezvs and now blanketing the ether
against the pirates’ ozvn communicators,
the patrolmen set out for Earth and the
Prime Base of the Galactic Patrol.
IX.
K imball kinnison sat at
his controls, smoking a rare,
festive cigarette and smiling, at
peace with the entire universe. For this
new picture was in every element a dif-
ferent one from the old. Instead of
being in a pitifully weak and defenseless
lifeboat, skulking and hiding, he was in
one of the most powerful battleships
afloat, driving boldly at full blast almost
directly toward home. Instead of only
two, the patrolmen were now three in
number, and LaVerne Thorndyke, mas-
ter technician, was a telling addition to
their force. Also, they had under them
almost a normal crew of alert and
highly trained Velantians.
Best of all, the enemy, instead of being
a close-knit group, keeping Helmuth in-
formed moment by moment of the situa-
tion and instantly responsive to his or-
ders, were now entirely out of com-
GALACTIC PATROL
125
munication with each other and with
their headquarters, groping helplessly.
Literally, as well as figuratively, the
pirates were in the dark — -the absolute
blackness of interstellar space. Then
Thorndyke entered the room, frowning
slightly.
“You look like the fabled Cheshire
Cat, Kim,” he remarked. “I hate to
spoil such perfect bliss, but I’m here to
tell you that we ain’t out of the woods
yet, by seven thousand rows of trees.”
“Maybe riot,” the Lensman returned,
blithely, “but compared to the jam we
were in a while ago we’re not only sit-
ting on top of the world ; we’re perched
right on the exact apex of the universe.
They can’t send or receive reports or
orders, and they can’t communicate.
Even their detectors are mighty lame.
You know how far they can get on
electromagnetic detectors and visual
apparatus. Furthermore, there isn’t an
identification number, symbol, or name
on the outside of this buzz buggy. If
it ever had one the friction and attrition
have worn it off, clear down to the
armor. What can happen that we can’t
cope with ?”
“These engines can happen,” the
technician responded, bluntly. “The
Bergenholm is developing a meter jump
that I don’t like a little bit.”
“Does she knock? Or even tick?”
demanded Kinnison.
“Not yet,” Thorndyke confessed, re-
luctantly.
“How big a jump?”
“Pretty near two thousandths maxi-
mum. Average a thousandth and a
half.”
“That’s hardly a wiggle on the re-
corder line. Drivers run for months
with bigger jumps than that.”
“Yeah — drivers. But of all the trou-
bles anybody ever had with Bergen-
holms, a meter kick was never one of
them, and that’s what’s got me guessing
as to the whichness of the why. I’m
not trying to scare you — yet. I’m just
telling you.”
The machine referred to was the neu-
tralizer of inertia, the sine qua non of
interstellar speed, and it was not to be
wondered at that the slightest irregu-
larity in its performance was to the
technician a matter of* grave concern.
Day after day passed, however, and the
huge converter continued to function,
taking in and sending out its wonted
torrents of power. It developed not
even a tick, and the meter jump did not
grow worse. And during those days
they put an inconceivable distance be-
hind them.
During all this time their visual in-
struments remained blank ; to all optical
apparatus space was empty save for the
normal tenancy of celestial bodies. From
time to time something invisible or be-
yond the range of vision registered upon
one of the electromagnetic detectors, but
so slow were these instruments that
nothing came of their signals. In fact,
by the time the warnings were recorded,
the objects causing the disturbances
were probably far astern.
ONE DAY, however, the Bergen-
holm quit — cold. There was no labor-
ing, no knocking, no heating up, no
warning at all. One instant the ship
was speeding along in free flight; the
next she was lying inert in space. She
was practically motionless, for any possi-
ble velocity built up by inert acceleration
is scarcely a crawl, as free space speeds
go!
Then the whole crew labored like
mad. As soon as they had the massive
covers off, Thorndyke scanned the
interior of the machine and turned to
Kinnison.
“I think we can patch her up, but
it’ll take quite a while. Maybe you’d
be of more use in the control room — this
ain’t quite as safe as a church, is it, lying
here inert?”
“Most of the stuff is on automatic
126
ASTOUNDING STORIES
trip, but maybe I’d better keep an eye
on things, at that. Let me know occa-
sionally how you’re getting along.” And
the Lensman went back to his controls
— none too soon.
For one pirate ship was already beam-
ing him viciously. Only the fact that
his defensive armament was upon its
automatic trips had saved the stolen bat-
tleship from practically instantaneous
destruction.
As Kinnison had already remarked
more than once, Helmuth was far from
being a fool, and that new and amaz-
ingly effective blanketing of his every
means of communication was a problem
whose solution was of paramount im-
portance. Almost every available ship
had been, for days, upon the fringe of
that interference, observing and report-
ing continuously. So rapidly was it
moving, however, so peculiar was its
apparent shape, and so contradictory
were the directional readings obtained,
that Helmuth’s computers had been
baffled.
Then Kinnisorj’s Bergenholm failed
and his ship went inert. In a space of
minutes the location of one center of
interference was known. Its coordi-
nates were determined and half a dozen
warships were ordered to rush that spot.
The raider first to arrive had signaled,
visually and audibly; then, obtaining
no response, had anchored with a trac-
tor and had loosed his bolts. Nor would
the result have been different had every
one aboard, instead of no one, been in
the control room at the time of the sig-
naling. Kinnison could have read the
messages, but neither hetnor any one
else then aboard the erstwhile pirate
craft could have answered them in kind.
Soon the two space ships attacking
the turncoat became three, then four,
and still the Lensman sat unworried at
his board. His meters showed no over-
load; his noble craft was easily taking
everything her sister ships could send.
Then Thomdyke stepped into the
room, no longer a natty officer of space.
Instead, he was stripped to sweat-soaked
undershirt and overalls. He was covered
with grease and grime, and what of his
thickly smeared face was visible was
almost haggard with fatigue. He opened
his mouth to say something, then
snapped it shut, as his eye was caught
by a flaring visiplate.
“Holy jumping rockets!” he eK-
claimed. “At us already? Why didn’t
you yell?”
“How much good would that have
done?” Kinnison wanted to know. “Of
course, if I had known that you were
loafing on the job and could have
snapped it up a little, I would have. But
there’s no particular hurry about this.
It’ll take more than four of them to
break us down, and I was hoping that
before they can overload us you’d have
us traveling. What was on your mind ?'
“I came up here — one, to tell you
that we’re ready to blast ; two, to suggest
that you hit her easy at first ; and three,
to ask if you know where there’s any
grease soap. But you can cancel two
and three. We don’t want to play
around with these boys much longer —
they play too rough — and I ain’t going
to wash up until I see whether she holds
together or not. Blast away — and won’t
those guys be surprised!”
“I’ll say so. We were, too, when the
Velantians showed us how to compute
a screen that would cut a tractor like
so much cheese. Here she goes!”
THE LENSMAN twirled a couple
of knobs, then punched down hard upon
three buttons. As he did so the flaring
plates became dark; they were again
alone in space. To the dumfounded
pirates, inert as they were and with their
supposedly unbreakable tractors locked
in full grip, it was as though their prey
had slipped off into the fourth dimen-
sion. Their tractors gripped nothing
whatever, their ravening beams bored
unimpeded through the space occupied
GALACTIC PATROL
127
an instant before by resisting screens.
They did not know what had happened,
or how ; and, being deep in the field of
interference, they could neither report
to nor be guided by the master mind of
Boskone.
For minutes Thorndyke, VanBuskirk,
and Kinnison waited tensely for they
knew not what would happen ; but noth-
ing happened and the tension gradually
relaxed.
“What was the matter with it?”
Kinnison asked, finally.
"Overloaded,” was Thomdyke’s terse
reply.
“Overloaded — hooey !” snapped the
Lensman. “How could they overload a
Bergenholm? And, even if they could,
why in all the nine hells of Valeria
would they want to ?”
“They could do it easily enough, in
just the way they did do it — by banking
accumulators onto it in series parallel.
As to why, I’ll let you do the guessing.
With no load on the Bergenholm you’ve
got full inertia, with full load you’ve got
zero inertia — you can’t go any farther
It looks just plain dumb to me. But
then, I think all pirates are short a few
jets somewhere. If they weren’t they
wouldn’t be pirates.”
“I don’t know whether you’re right
or not. Hope so, but afraid not. Per-
sonally, I don’t believe these folks are
pirates at all, in the ordinary sense of
the word.”
“Huh? What are they, then?”
“Piracy implies similarity of culture,
I would think,” the Lensman said,
thoughtfully. “Ordinary pirates are
usually renegades, deficient somehow,
as you suggested, rebelling against a
constituted authority which they them-
selves have at one time acknowledged
and of which they are still afraid. That
pattern doesn’t fit into this matrix at all,
anywhere.”
"So what? Now I say ‘hooey’ right
back at you. Anyway, why worry about
it?”
“Not worrying about it exactly, but
somebody has got to do some thinking
about it, or else ”
“I don’t like to think ; it makes my
head ache,” interrupted VanBuskirk.
“Besides, we’re getting away from the
Bergenholm.”
“You’ll get a real headache there” —
Kinnison laughed — “because I’ll bet a
good Tellurian beefsteak that the pirates
were trying to set up a negative inertia
when they overloaded the Bergenholm;
and thinking about that state of matter
is enough to make anybody’s head
ache 1”
“I knew that some of the dippier
Ph.D.’s in higher mechanics have been
speculating about it,” Thorndyke of-
fered, “but it can’t be done that way,
can it?”
“Nor any other way that anybody
has tried yet, and if such a thing is possi-
ble the results may prove really star-
tling. But you two had better shove off ;
you’re dead from the neck up. The
Berg’s spinning like a top — as smooth
as that much green velvet. You’ll find
a can of soap in my locker, I think.”
"MAYBE she’ll hold together long
enough for us to get some sleep.” The
technician eyed a meter dubiously, al-
though its needle was not wavering a
hair’s breadth from the green line. “But
I’ll tell the cockeyed universe that that
was a jury rigging we gave it, if there
ever was one. You can't depend on it
for an hour until after it’s been pulled
and gone over; and that, you know as
well as I do, takes a real shop, with
plenty of equipment. If you take my
advice you’ll sif ffown somewhere while
you can and as soon as you can. That
Bergenholm is in bad shape, believe me.
We can hold her together for a while
by main strength and awkwardness, but
before very long she’s going out for
keeps — and when she goes out you don't
want to find yourself fifty years from
a machine shop instead of fifty minutes.”
128
ASTOUNDING STORIES
“I'll say not,” the Lensman agreed.
“But on the other hand, we don’t want
those birds jumping us the minute we
land, either. Let’s see, where are
we? And where are the bases? Um —
um — sector bases are white rings, you
know, sub-sector bases red stars ”
.Three heads bent over charts.
“The nearest red-star marker seems
to be in System 240-16-37,” Kinnison
finally announced. “Don’t know the
name of the planet — never been there
and ”
“Too far,” interrupted Thorndyke.
“We’ll never make it. Might as well
try direct for Prime Base on Tellus. If
you can’t find a red closer than that,
look for an orange or a yellow.”
“Bases of any kind seem to be scarce
out here,” the Lensman commented.
“Wish they had scattered them around
a little thicker. Here’s a violet star,
but that wouldn’t help us — just an out-
post.”
“Guess that purple one there’s our
best bet,” concluded Thorndyke. “It’s
probably several breakdowns away, but
maybe we can make it if we have to.
Purples are pretty low-grade space
ports, but they’ve got tools, anyway.
What’s the name of it, Kim — or is it
only a number?”
“It’s that very famous planet,
Trenco,” the Lensman announced, after
looking up the reference numbers in the
atlas.
“Trenco!" exclaimed Thorndyke in
disgust. “The nuttiest, dopiest, woozi-
est planet in the galaxy! We would
draw something like that to sit down on
for repairs, wouldn’t we? Well. I’m on
minus time for sleep. Call me if we
go inert before I wake up, will you?”
“I sure will; and I’ll try to figure
out a way of getting down to ground
without bringing all the pirates in space
along with us.”
Then Thorndyke and VanBuskirk
slept ; Kinnison planned, and the mighty
Bergenholm continued to hold the ves-
sel inertialess. In fact, all three men
were thoroughly rested and refreshed
before the expected breakdown came.
And when it did come they were more
or less prepared for it. The delay was
not sufficiently long to enable the pirates
to find them again.
THE sweating, grunting, swearing
engineers made one seemingly impossible
repair after another, by dint of what
dodge, improvisation, and makeshift
only the fertile brain of LaVerne Thorn-
dyke ever did know. The master
technician, one of the keenest and most
highly trained engineers of the whole
solarian system, was not used to work-
ing with his hands. Although young
in years, he was wont to use only his
head, in directing the labors and the
energies of others.
Nevertheless, he was now working
like a stevedore. He was permanently
grimy and greasy — their one can of me-
chanics’ soap had been used up long
since. His finger nails were black and
broken ; his hands and face were burned,
blistered and cracked. His muscles
ached and shrieked at the unaccustomed
effort, until now they were on the build.
But through it all he had stuck uncom-
plainingly, even buoyantly, to his task.
One day, during an interlude of free
flight, he strode into the control room
and glanced at the course-plotting goni-
ometer, then stared into the “tank.”
“Still on the original course, I see.
Have you got anything doped out yet?”
“Nothing very good. That’s why
I’m staying on this course until we
reach the point closest to Trenco. I’ve
figured until my alleged brain back-fired
on me, and here’s all I.can get:
“I’ve been shrinking and expanding
our interference zone, changing its
shape as much as I could with reflectors,
and cutting it off entirely now and then,
to cross up their surveyors as much as
I could. When we come to the jump-
ing-off place we’ll simply cut off every-
GALACTIC PATROL
129
thing that is sending out traceable vibra-
tions. The Berg will have to run, of
course, but it doesn’t radiate much and
we can ground out practically all of that.
The drive is the bad feature. It looks
as though we’ll have to cut down to
where we can ground out the radiation.”
“How about the flare?” Thorndyke
took the inevitable slide rule from a
pocket of liis overalls and began to
work it.
“I’ve already had the Velantians
build us some baffles— we’ve got lots of
spare tantalum, tungsten, carballoy, and
refractory, you know — just in case we
should want to use them.”
“Radiation — detection — decreement—
cosine squared theta — urn — call it Point
0038?” the engineer mumbled, operating
his calculator. “We’ll have to cut down
to about ten or twelve lights. Mighty
slow, but we would get there sometime
— maybe. Now about the baffles.” And
he went into another bout with his slide
rule, during which could be distinguished
a few such words as “temperature —
inert corpuscles — velocity — fusion point
— Weinberger’s Constant ”
Then he said, “It figures that at about
fourteen lights your baffles go out.
Pretty close check with the radiation
limit. QX, I guess — but I shudder to
think of what we may have to do to
that Bergenholm to hold it together
that long.”
“It’s not so hot. I don’t think much
of the scheme myself,” admitted Kinni-
son frankly. “Probably you can think
up something better before ”
“Who, me? What with?” Thorn-
dyke interrupted, with a laugh. “Looks
to me like our best bet. Anyway, ain’t
you the master mind of this outfit?
Blast off!”
THUS it came about that, long later,
the Lensman cut off his interference, cut
off his driving power, cut off every
mechanism whose operation generated
vibrations which would reveal to enemy
AST— 9
detectors the location of his - cruiser.
Space-suited mechanics emerged from
the stern lock and fitted over the still
white-hot vents of the driving projectors
the baffles they had previously built.
It is, of course, well known that all
ships of space are propelled by the inert
projection, by means of high-potential
static fields, of nascent fourth-order
particles or “corpuscles,” which are
formed inert, inside the inertialess pro-
jector, by the conversion of some form
of energy into matter. This conversion
liberates some heat, and a vast a mojp t.
of light. This light, or “flare,” stmingc
as it does directly upon and through the
highly tenuous gas formed by the pro-
jected corpuscles, makes of a speeding
space ship one of the most gorgeous
spectacles known to man ; and it was
this very spectacular effect that Kinni-
son and his crew must do away with if
their bold scheme was to have any
chance at all of success.
The baffles were in place. Now, in-
stead of shooting out in telltale lumines-
cence, the light was shut in — but so,
alas, was approximately three per cent
of the heat. And the generation of heat
must be cut down to a point at which the
radiation-equilibrium temperature of the
baffles would be below the point of
fusion of the refractories of which they
were composed. This would cut down
their speed tremendously; but, on the
other hand, they were practically safe
from detection and would reach Trenco
eventually — if the Bergenholm held out.
Of course, there was still the chance
of visual or electromagnetic detection,
but that chance was vanishingly small.
The proverbial task of finding a needle
in a haystack would he an easy one in-
deed, compared to that of seeing in a
telescope or upon visiplate or magne-
plate a dead-black, lightless ship in the
infinity of space. No, the Bergenholm
was their great, their only concern ; and
the engineers lavished upon that mon-
strous fabrication of metal a devotion
130
ASTOUNDING STORIES
to which could he likened only that of
a corps of nurses attending the ailing
baby of a multimillionaire.
This concentration of attention did
get results. The engineers still found
it necessary to sweat and to grunt and
to swear, but they did somehow keep
the thing running — most of the time.
Nor were they detected — then.
For the attention of the pirate high
command was very much taken up with
that fast-moving, that ever-expanding,
that peculiarly-fluctuating volume of
interference — utterly enigmatic as it was,
and impenetrable to their very instru-
ment of communication. Its center was
moving toward the solarian system. In
that system was the Prime Base of the
Galactic Patrol. Therefore, it the
Lensman ’s work — undoubtedly the same
Lensman who had conquered one of
their superships and, after having
learned its every secret, had escaped in
a lifeboat through the fine.-meshed net
set to catch him ! And, piling Ossa
upon Felion, this same Lensman had —
must have — captured ship after uncon-
querable ship of their best and was
even now sailing calmly home with
them !
Therefore, using as tools every pirate
ship in that sector of space, Helmuth
and his computers and navigators were
slowly but grimly solving the equations
of motion of that volume of interference.
Smaller and smaller became the uncer-
tainties. Then ship after ship bored
into the subethereal murk, to match
course and velocity with, and ultimately
to come to grips with, each focus of
disturbance as it was determined.
Thus in a sense, and although Kinni-
son and his friends did not then know
it, it was only the failure of the Bergen-
holm that was to save their lives, and
with those lives our present civilization.
SLOWLY, haltingly, and, for reasons
already given, undetected, Kinnison
made pitiful progress toward Trenco —
impatiently cursing his ship, the crippled
generator, its designer and its previous
operators as he went. But at long last
Trenco loomed large beneath them and
the Lensman used his Lens.
“Lensman of Trenco space port, or
any other Lensman within call !” he sent
out clearly. “Kinnison of Tellus — Sol
III — calling. My Bergenholm is almost
put and I must sit down at Trenco space
port for repairs. I have avoided the
pirates so far, but they may be either
behind me or ahead of me, or both.
What is the situation there?’’
“I fear that I can be of no help,” came
back a weak thought, without the cus-
tomary identification. “I am out of con-
trol. However, Tregonsee is in the ”
Kinnison felt a poignant, unbearably
agonizing mental impact that jarred him
to the very core: a shock that, while
of sledge-hammer force, was still of
such a keenly, penetrant timbre that it
almost exploded every cell of his brain.
Communication ceased, and the Lens-
man knew, with a sick, shuddering cer-
tainty, that while in the very act of talk-
ing to him a Lensman had died.
X.
JUDGED by any Earthly standards,
the planet Trenco was — and is — a pecul-
iar one indeed. Its atmosphere, which
is not air, and its liquid, which is not
water, are its two outstanding pecul-
iarities and the sources of most of its
others. Almost half of that atmosphere
and by far the greater part of the liquid
phase of the planet is a substance of
extremely low latent heat of vapori-
zation, with a boiling point such that
during the daytime it is a vapor and at
night a liquid. To make matters worse,
the other constituents of Trenco’s gas-
eous envelope are of very feeble blanket-
ing power, low specific heat, and of high
permeability, so that its days are in-
GALACTIC PATROL
131
Here — the Lensman knew —
was in every essential a man
— and probably a superman.
tensely hot and its nights are bitterly
colcl.
At night, therefore, it rains. Words
are entirely inadequate to describe to any
one who has never been there just how
it does rain during Trenco’s nights.
Upon Earth one inch of rainfall in an
hour is a terrific downpour. Upon
Trenco that amount of precipitation
would scarcely be considered a mist ;
for along the equatorial belt, in less than
thirteen Tellurian hours, it rains exactly
forty-seven feet and five inches every
night — no more and no less, each and
every night of every year.
Also there is lightning. Not in
Terra’s occasional flashes, but in one
continuous, blinding glare which makes
132
ASTOUNDING STORIES
night as we know it unknown there —
in nerve-wracking, battering, sense-de-
stroying discharges which make ether
and subether alike impenetrable to any
ray or signal short of a full-driven
power beam. The days are practically
as bad. The lightning is not so violent
then, but the bombardment of Trenco’s
monstrous sun, through that outlandishly
peculiar atmosphere, produces almost
the same effect.
Because of the difference in pressure
set up by the enormous precipitation,
always and everywhere upon Trenco
there is wind— and what a wind ! Ex-
cept at the very poles, where it is too
cold for even Trenconian life to exist,
there is hardly a spot in which or a time
at which an Earthy gale would not be
considered a dead calm ; and along the
equator, at every sunrise and at every
sunset, the wind blows from the day
side to the night side at the rate of a
trifle over eight hundred miles an hour!
Through countless thousands of years
wind and w ave have planed and scoured
the planet Trenco to a geometrically per-
fect oblate spheroid. It has no eleva-
tions and no depressions. Nothing
fixed in an Earthly sense grows or exists
upon its surface; no structure has ever
been built there able to stay in one place
through one whole day of the cataclys-
mic meteorological phenomena which
constitute the natural Trenconian en-
vironment.
THERE LIVE upon Trenco two
types of vegetation, each type having
innumerable subdivisions. One type
sprouts in the mud of the morning;
flourishes flatly, by dint of deeply sent
and powerful roots, during the wind
and the heat of the day ; comes to full
fruit in late afternoon ; and at sunset
dies and is swept away by the flood.
The Other type is free-floating. Some of
its genera are remotely like footballs ;
others resemble tumbleweeds ; still
others thistledown; hundreds of others
have not their remotest counterparts
upon Earth. Essentially, however, they
are alike in habits of life. They can sink
in the “water” of Trenco; they can bur-
row in its mud, from which they derive
part of their sustenance ; they cart emerge
therefrom into the sunlight; they can,
undamaged, float in or roll along before
the ever-present Trenconian wind ; and
they can enwrap, entangle, or otherwise
seize and hold anything with which
they come in contact which by any
chance may prove edible.
Animal life, too, while abundant and
diverse, is characterized by three quali-
ties. From lower to very highest it is
amphibious; it is streamlined; and it is
omnivorous. Life upon Trenco is hard,
and any form of life to evolve there
must of stern necessity be willing, yes,
even anxious, to eat literally anything
available. And for that reason all sur-
viving forms of life, vegetable and ani-
mal, have a voracity and a fecundity al-
most unknown anywhere else in the
galaxy.
Thionite, the noxious drug referred
to earlier in this narrative, is the sole
reason for Trenco’s galactic importance.
As chlorophyll is to Earthly vegetation,
so is thionite to that of Trenco. Trenco
is the only planet thus far known upon
which this substance occurs, nor have
our scientists even yet been able either
to analyze or to synthesize it. Thionite
is capable of affecting only those races
who breathe oxygen and possess warm
blood, red with haemoglobin.
However, the planets peopled by such
races are legion, and very shortly after
the drug’s discovery hordes of addicts,
smugglers, peddlers, and out-and-out
pirates were rushing toward the new
bonanza, 'fhousands of these adven-
turers died, either from each other’s
ray guns or under an avalanche of hun-
gry Trenconian life ; but, thionite being
what it is, thousands more kept com-
ing. Also came the patrol, to curb the
evil traffic at its source by beaming
GALACTIC PATROL
133
down ruthlessly any being attempting
to gather any Trenconian vegetation.
Thus between the patrol and the drug-
syndicate there rages a bitterly con-
tinuous battle to the death. Arrayed
against both factions is the massed life
of the noisome planet, omnivorous as
it is, eternally ravenous, and of an in-
dividual power and ferocity and a col-
lective aggregate of numbers none of
which is to be despised. And eternally
raging against all these contending par-
ties are the wind, the lightning, the rain,
the flood, and the hellish vibratory out-
put of Trenco’s enormous, malignant,
blue- white sun.
THIS, then, was the planet upon
which Kinnison had to land in order to
repair his crippled Bergenholm — and in
the end how well it was to be that such
was the case !
“Kinnison of Tellus, greetings. Tre-
gonsee of Rigel IV calling from Trenco
space port. Have you ever landed on
this planet before?”
“No. but what — t — ”
“Skip that for a time ; it is most im-
portant that you land here quickly and
safely. Where are you in relation to
this planet?”
“Your apparent diameter is a shade
under six degrees. We are near the
plane of your ecliptic and almost in the
plane of your terminator, on the morn-
ing side.”
“That is well; you have ample time.
Place your ship between Trenco and
the sun. Enter the atmosphere exactly
fifteen G-P minutes from . . . check
... at twenty degrees after meridian,
as nearly as possible on the ecliptic,
which is also our equator. Go inert as
you enter atmosphere; for a free land-
ing upon this planet is impossible.
Synchronize with our rotation, which is
twenty-six points two G-P hours. De-
scend vertically until the atmospheric
pressure is seven hundred millimeters
of mercury, which will be at an altitude
of approximately one thousand meters.
Since you rely largely upon that sense
called sight, allow me to caution you
now not to trust it. When your ex-
ternal pressure is seven hundred milli-
meters of mercury your altitude will be
one thousand meters, whether you be-
lieve it or not. Stop at that pressure
and inform me of the fact, meanwhile
holding yourself as nearly stationary as
you can. Check so far?”
“QX. But do you mean to tell me
that we can’t locate each other at a
thousand imters?” Kinnison’s amazed
thought escaped him. “What kind
of ”
“I can locate you, but you cannot
locate me,” came the dry reply. “Every
one knows that Trenco is peculiar, but
no one who has never l>een here can
realize even dimly how peculiar it really
is. Detectors and spy rays are useless,
electromagnetics are practically par-
alyzed, and optical apparatus is dis-
tinctly unreliable. You cannot trust
your vision here. Do not believe all
that you see. It used to require days to
land a ship at this port. But with our
Lenses and my “sense of perception,”
as you call it, it will be a matter of min-
utes.”
Kinnison had flashed his ship to the
designated position.
“Cut the Berg, Thorndyke, we’re all
done with it. I’ve got to build up an
inert velocity to match the rotation, and
land inert.”
“Thanks be to all the gods of space
for that.” The engineer heaved a sigh
of relief. “I've been expecting it to
blow its top for the last hour, and I
don’t know whether we’d ever have got
it meshed in again or not.”
“QX on location and orbit,” Kinni-
son reported to the as yet invisible space
port a few minutes later. “Now, what
about that Lensman? What happened?”
“The usual thing,” came the emotion-
less response. “It happens to altogether
too many Lensmen who can see, in spite
134
ASTOUNDING STORIES
of everything we can tell them. He in-
sisted upon going out after his zwilniks
in a ground car, and, of course, we had
to let him go. He became confused, lost
control, let something — possibly a zwil-
nik’s bomb— get under his leading edge,
and the wind and the Trencos did the
rest. He was Lageston of Mercator V
— a good man, too. What is the pres-
sure now?”
"Five hundred millimeters.”
"Slow down. Now, if you cannot
conquer the tendency to believe your
eyes, you had better shut off your visi-
plates and watch only the pressure
gauge.”
"Being warned, I can disbelieve my
eyes, I think.” For a minute or so
communication ceased.
AT A STARTLED OATH from
VanBuskirk, Kinnison glanced into the
plate. It needed all his self-control to
keep from wrenching savagely at the
controls. For the whole planet was tip-
ping, lurching, spinning, gyrating madly
in a frenzy of impossible motions.
“Sheer off, Kim f” yelled the Valerian.
“Hold it, Bus,” cautioned the Lens-
man. “That’s what we’ve got to ex-
pect, you know. I passed all the stuff
along as I got it. Everything, that is,
except that a zwilnik is anything or any-
body that comes after thionite, and that
a Trenco is anything, animal or vegeta-
ble, that lives on the planet. QX,
Tregonsee — -seven hundred, and I’m
holding steady — I hope!”
"Steady enough, but you are too far
away for our landing bars. Direct a
thought, rotating the prime axis of your
Lens while inclining it somewhat down-
ward. . . . Stop! Mark that line
on your circles. Now think of the align-
ment of your ship in relation to that
line. Swing your prow away from that
line, clear around, to approach it from
the other side . . . slow . . . hold
it ! Apply normal acceleration. . . .”
In a few minutes the crew felt a gen-
tle, snubbing shock, and Kinnison again
translated to his companions the stran-
ger’s thoughts : "We have grasped you
with our landing bars. Cut off all your
power and set all controls in neutral.
Do nothing more until I instruct you
to come out.”
Kinnison obeyed; and, released from
all duty, the three visitors stared in
fascinated incredulity into the visiplate.
For that at which they stared was and
must forever remain impossible of dupli-
cation upon Earth, and only in imagina-
tion can it be even faintly pictured.
Imagine all the fantastic and monstrous
creatures of a delirium-tremens vision
incarnate and actual. Imagine them
being hurled through the air, borne by
a dust-laden gale more severe than any
the great American “dust bowl” or
Africa’s Sahara Desert ever endured.
Imagine this scene as being viewed, not
in an ordinary, solid, distorting mirror,
but in one whose falsely reflecting con-
tours were changing constantly, with
no logical or intelligible rhythm, into
new and ever more grotesque warps.
If imagination has been equal to the
task, the resultant is what the three pa-
trolmen tried to see.
At first they could make nothing
whatever of it. Upon nearer approach,
however, the ghastly distortion grew less
and the flatly level expanse of sun-
baked mud took on a semblance of
rigidity. Directly beneath them they
made out something that looked like an
immense, flat blister upon the otherwise
featureless terrain. Their ship was
drawn toward this blister.
A PORT OPENED, dwarfed in
apparent size to a mere window by the
immensity of the structure. Through
this port the vast bulk of the space ship
was wafted upon the landing bars, and
behind it the mighty bronze-and-steel
gates clanged shut. The lock was
pumped to a vacuum; there was a hiss
of entering air; a spray of vaporous
GALACTIC PATROL
135
liquid bathed every inch of the vessel’s
surface, and Kinnison felt again the calm
voice of Tregonsee, the Rigellian Lens-
man.
“You may now open your air lock
and emerge. If I have read aright, our
atmosphere is sufficiently like your own
in oxygen content so that you will suffer
no ill effects from it. It may be well,
however, to wear your armor until you
have become accustomed to its consider-
ably greater density.”
“That’ll be a relief!” growled Van-
Buskirk’s deep base, when his chief had
transmitted the thought. “I’ve been
breathing this thin stuff so long I’m get-
ting light-headed.”
“That’s gratitude!” Thorndyke re-
torted. “We’ve been running our air so
heavy that all the rest of us are thick-
headed now. If the air in this space
port is any heavier than what we’ve been
having, I’m going to wear armor as
long as we stay here !”
Kinnison had opened the air lock,
found the atmosphere of the space port
satisfactory, and now stepped out, to
be greeted cordially by Tregonsee, the
Lensman.
This — this apparition was at least
erect, which was something. His body
was the size and shape of an oil drum.
Beneath this massive cylinder of a body
were four short, blocky legs upon which
he waddled about with surprising speed.
Midway up the body, above each leg,
there sprouted out a ten-foot-long,
writhing, boneless, tentacular arm,
which toward the extremity branched
out into dozens of lesser tentacles, rang-
ing in size from hairlike tendrils up to
mighty fingers two inches or more in
diameter. Tregonsee’s head was merely
a neckless, immobile, bulging dome in
the center of the flat, upper surface of
bis body — a dome bearing neither eyes
nor ears, but only four equally spaced
toothless mouths and four single, flaring
nostrils.
But Kinnison felt no qualm of repug-
nance at Tregonsee’s monstrous appear-
ance, for embedded in the leathery flesh
of one arm was the Lens. Here, the
Lensman knew, was in every essential
a man — and probably a superman.
“Welcome to Trenco, Kinnison of
Tellus,” Tregonsee was saying. “While
we are near neighbors in space, I have
never happened to visit your planet. I
have encountered Tellurians here, of
course, but they were not of a type to be
received as guests.”
“No, a zwilnik is not a high type of
Tellurian,” Kinnison agreed. “1 have
often wished that I could have your
sense of perception, if only for a day.
It must be wonderful indeed to be able
to perceive a thing as a whole, inside
and out. instead of having vision stopped
at its surface, as is ours. And to be in-
dependent of light or darkness, never to
be lost or in need of instruments, to
know definitely where you are in rela-
tion to every other object or thing
around you — that, I think, is the most
marvelous sense in the universe.”
“Just as I have wished for sight and
hearing, those two remarkable and to us
entirely unexplainable senses. I have
dreamed? I have studied volumes, on
color and sftund : color in art and in na-
ture; sound in music and in the voices
of loved ones. But they remain mean-
ingless symbols upon a printed page.
However, such thoughts are vain. In
all probability neither of us would en-
joy the other's equipment if he had it,
and this interchange is of no material
assistance to you.”
IN FLASHING THOUGHTS
Kinnison then communicated to the
other Lensman everything that had
transpired since he left Prime Base.
“I perceive that your Bergenholm is-
of Standard 14 Rating,” Tregonsee said,
as the Tellurian finished his story. "We
have several spares here ; and, while
they all have regulation patrol mount-
ings, it would take much less time to
136
ASTOUNDING STORIES
change mounts than to overhaul your
machine.”
■‘That’s so, too. I never thought of
the possibility of your having spare ma-
chines — and we’ve lost a lot of time
already. How long will it take ?”
"One night of labor to change mounts
’ — at least eight to rebuild yours enough
to be sure that it will get you home.”
' "We’ll change mounts, then, by all
means. I’ll call the boys- ”
"There is no need of that. We are
amply equipped, and neither of you hu-
mans nor the Velantians could handle
our tools,” Tregonsee made no visible
motion nor could Kinnison perceive a
break in his thought, but while he was
conversing with the Tellurian half a
dozen of his blocky Rigellians had
dropped whatever they had been doing
and were scuttling toward the visiting
ship. "Now I must leave you for a
time, as I have one more trip to make
this afternoon.”
"Is there anything I can do to help
you?” asked Kinnison.
“No,” came the definite negative. “I
will return in three hours, as well before
sunset the wind makes it impossible to
get even a ground car into the port. I
will then show you why you can be of
little assistance to us.”
Kinnison spent those three hours
watching the Rigellians work upon the
Bergenholm ; there was no need for di-
rection or advice. They knew what to
do and they did it. Those tiny, hair-
like fingers, literally hundreds of them
at once, performed delicate tasks with
surpassing nicety and dispatch ; when it
came to heavy tasks the larger digits
or even whole arms wrapped them-
selves around the work and, with the
solid bracing of the four blocklike legs,
exerted forces that even VanBuskirk’s
giant frame could not have approached.
As the end of the third hour neared,
Kinnison watched with a spy ray— there
were no windows in the Trenco space
port — the leeward groundway of the
structure. In spite of the weird antics
of Trenco’s sun— gyrating, jumping, ap-
pearing and disappearing — he knew that
it was going down. Soon he saw the
ground car coming in, scuttling crab-
wise, nose into the wind but actually
moving backward and sidewise. Al-
though the “seeing” was very poor, at
this close range the _ distortion was
minimized and he could see that, like its
parent craft, the ground car was in the
shape of a blister. Its edges actually
touched the ground all around, sloping
upward and over the top in such a
smooth reverse curve that the harder the
wind blew the- more firmly was the
vehicle pressed downward.
The ground flap came up just enough
to clear the car’s top and the tiny craft
crept up. But before the landing bars
could seize her the ground car struck
an eddy from the flap — an eddy in a
medium which, although gaseous, was at
that velocity practically solid. Earth
blasted away in torrents from the lead-
ing edge; the car leaped bodily into the
air and was flung away, end over end.
But Tregonsee, with consummate crafts-
manship, forced her flat again, and again
she crawled up toward the flap. This
time the landing bars took hold and,
although the little vessel fluttered like a
leaf in a gale, she was drawn inside the
port and the flap went down behind her.
She was . then sprayed, and Tregonsee
came out.
“Why the spray ?” thought Kinnison,
as the Rigellian entered his control
room.
"Trencos. Much of the life of this
planet starts from almost imperceptible
spores. It develops rapidly, attains con-
siderable size, and consumes anything
organic it touches. This port was de-
populated time after time before the
lethal spray was developed." Now turn
your spy ray again to the lee of the
port.”
GALACTIC PATROL
137
DURING the few minutes that had
elapsed the wind had increased in fury
to such an extent that the very ground
was boiling away from the trailing edge
in the tumultuous eddy formed there,
ultra-streamlined though the space port
was. And that eddy, far surpassing
in violence any storm known to Earth,
was to the denizens of Trenco a miracu-
lously appearing quiet spot in which
they could stop and rest, eat and be
eaten.
A globular monstrosity had thrust
pseudopodia deep into the boiling dirt.
Other limbs now shot out, grasping a
tumbleweedlike growth. The latter
fought back viciously, but could make
no impression upon the rubbery integu-
ment of the former. Then a smaller
creature, slipping down the polished
curve of the shield, was enmeshed by
the tumbleweed, There ensued the
amazing spectacle of one half of the tum-
bleweed devouring the newcomer, even
while its other half was being devoured
by the globe !
“Now look out farther — still farther,”
directed Tregonsee.
“I can’t. Things take on impossible
motions and become so distorted as to
be unrecognizable.”
“Exactly. If you saw a zwilnik out
there, where would you shoot?”
“At him, I suppose. Why?”
“Because if you shot at where you
think you see him, not only would you
miss him, but the ray might very well
swing around and enter your own back.
Many men have been killed by their own
weapons in precisely that fashion. Since
we know, not only what the object is,
but exactly where it is, we can correct
our beams for the then existing values
of distortion. This is, of course, the
reason why we Rigellians and other
races possessing the sense of perception
are the only ones who can efficiently po-
lice this planet.”
“Reason enough, I’d say, from what
I’ve seen.”
Silence fell. For minutes the two
Lensmen watched, while creatures of a
hundred kinds streamed into the lee of
the space port and killed and ate each
other. Finally, something came crawl-
ing upwind, against that unimaginable
gale — a flatly streamlined creature some-
what resembling a turtle, but shaped as
was the ground car.
Thrusting down long, hooked flippers
into the dirt it inched along, paying no
attention to the scores of lesser creatures
who hurled themselves upon its armored
back, until it was close beside the largest
football-shaped creature in the eddy.
Then, lightninglike, it drove a needle-
sharp organ at least eight inches into
the leathery mass of its victim. Strug-
gling convulsively, the stricken thing
lifted the turtle a fraction of an inch —
and both were hurled instantly out of
sight; the living hall still eating a lus-
cious bit of soil.
“Good Lord, what was that?” ex-
claimed Kinnison.
“The flat ? That was a representative
of Trenco’s highest life form. It may
develop a civilization in time. It is
quite intelligent now.”
“But the difficulties!” protested the
Tellurian. “Building cities, even homes
and ”
“Neither cities nor homes are neces-
sary, nor even desirable, here. Why
build? Nothing is or can be fixed on
this planet, and since one place is exactly
like every other place, why wish to re-
main in any one particular spot? They
do very well, in their own mobile way.
Here, you will notice, comes the rain.”
The rain came — forty-four inches per
hour of rain — and the lightning. Such
rain and such lightning must be seen to
be even dimly appreciated ; there is no
use in attempting to describe the in-
describable. The dirt first became mud,
then muddy water being driven in
fiercely flying gouts and masses.
The water grew deeper and deeper,
its upper surface now whipped into
138
ASTOUNDING STORIES
frantic sheets of spray. The structure
was now afloat, and Kinnison saw with
astonishment that, small as was the ex-
posed surface and flatly curved, yet it
was pulling through the water at fright-
ful speed the wide-spreading steel sea
anchors which were holding its head to
the gale.
"With no reference points how do
you know where you’re going?” he de-
manded.
"We know not, nor care,” responded
Tregonsee, with a mental shrug. "We
are like the natives in that. Since one
spot is like every other spot, why choose
between them?”
“What a world — what a world !
However, I am beginning to understand
why thionite is so expensive.” And,
overwhelmed by the ever-increasing
fury raging outside, Kinnison sought
his bunk.
MORNING CAME, a reversal of
the previous evening. The liquid evapo-
rated; the mud dried; the flat -growing
vegetation sprang up with shocking
speed ; the animals emerged and again
ate and were eaten.
And eventually came Tregonsee’s an-
nouncement that it was noon, and that
now, for an hour or so, it would be
calm enough for the space ship to leave
the port.
"You are sure that I would be of no
help to you?” asked the Rigellian, half
pleadingly.
"Sorry, Tregonsee, but you would fit
into my matrix just as I would into
yours here. But here’s the spool I told
you about. If you will take it to your
base on your next relief you will do
civilization and the patrol more good
than you could by coming with us.
Thanks for the Bergenholm, which is
covered by credits, and thanks a lot for
your help and courtesy, which can’t be
covered. Good-by.” The now entirely
spaceworthy craft shot out through the
port, through Trenco’s noxiously pecul-
iar atmosphere, into the vacuum of
space.
XI.
“ Shapley holds that these (star)
(lusters, under the gravitative con-
trol of the larger system, vibrate
back and forth through the galaxy.”
Fath, " Elements of Astronomy,”
p. 297.
AT SOME DISTANCE from the
galazy, yet shackled to it by the flexible
yet powerful bonds of gravitation, the
small but comfortable planet upon which
was Helmuth’s base circled about its
parent sun. This planet had been chosen
with the utmost care, and its location
was a secret guarded jealously indeed.
Scarcely one in a million of Boskone’s
teeming millions knew even that such
a planet existed ; and of the chosen few
who had ever been asked to visit it,
fewer still by far had been allowed to
leave it.
Grand Base covered hundreds of
square miles of that planet’s surface. It
was equipped with all the arms and
armament known to the military genius
of the age; and in the exact center of
that immense citadel there arose a glit-
tering metallic dome.
The inside surface of that dome was
lined with visiplates and communica-
tors, hundreds of thousands of them.
Miles of catwalks clung precariously to
the inward-curving wall. Control
panels and instrument boards covered
the floor in banks and tiers, with only
narrow runways between them. And
what a personnel! There were Solari-
ans, Crevenians, Sirians. There were
Antareans, Vandemarians, Arcturians.
There were representatives of scores,
yes, hundreds of other solar systems of
the galaxy.
But whatever their external form they
were all breathers of oxygen and they
were all nourished by warm, red blood.
GALACTIC PATROL
139
Also, they were all alike mentally.
Each had won his present high place
by trampling down those beneath him
and by pulling down those above him
in the branch to which he had first be-
longed of the “pirate” organization.
Kinnison had been eminently correct
in his belief that Boskone’s was not a
“pirate outfit” in apy ordinary sense
of the word, but even his ideas of its
true nature fell far short indeed of the
truth.
It was a tyranny, an absolute
monarchy, a depotism not even remotely
approximated by the dictatorships of
earlier ages. It had only one creed :
“The end justifies the means.” Any-
thing — literally anything at all — that
produced the desired result was com-
mendable; to fail was the only crime.
Therefore, no weaklings dwelt within
that fortress ; and of all its cold, hard,
ruthless crew far and away the coldest,
hardest, and most ruthless was Helmuth,
the “speaker for Boskone,” who sat at
the great desk in the dome’s geometrical
center. This individual was almost hu-
man in form and build, springing as he
did from a planet closely approximating
Earth in mass, atmosphere, and climate.
Indeed, only his general, all-pervasive
aura of blueness bore witness to the fact
that he was not a native of Tellus.
His eyes were blue ; hfs hair was blue ;
and even his skin was faintly blue be-
neath its coat of ultra-violet tan. His
intensely dynamic personality fairly
radiated blueness — not the gentle blue of
an Earthly sky, not the sweetly innocu-
ous blue of an Earthly flower; but the
keenly merciless blue of a deltra ray, the
cold and bitter blue of a Polar iceberg,
the unyielding, inflexible blue of chilled
and tempered steel.
NOW a frown sat heavily upon his
arrogantly patrician face, as his eyes
bored into the plate before him, from the
base of which were issuing the words
being spoken by the assistant pictured
in its deep surface:
“ — the fifth dived into the deepest
ocean of Corvina II, in the depths of
which all rays are useless. The ships
which followed have not as yet recon-
nected. No trace of the sixth has been
found, and it is therefore assumed that
she was destroyed upon Velantia ”
“Who assumes so?” demanded Hel-
muth, coldly. “There is no justification
whatever for such an assumption. Go
on!”
“The Lensman, if there is one, must
therefore be in the fifth ship, since he
was not in any of the four which we
have retaken.”
“Your report is neither complete nor
conclusive. I do not at all approve of
your intimation that the Lensman is
simply a figment of my imagination.
That there is a Lensman is the only
possible logical conclusion. None other
of the patrol forces could have done
what has been done. Postulating his
reality, it seems to me that instead of
being a rare possibility, it is highly
probable that he has again escaped us,
and again in one of our own vessels —
this time in the one you have so con-
veniently ‘assumed’ to have been de-
stroyed. Have you searched the line of
flight?”
“Yes, sir. Everything in space and
every planet within reach of that line
has been examined with care ; except,
of course, Velantia and Trenco.”
“Velantia is, for the time being, un-
important. It will be reduced later.
Why Trenco?” and Helmuth pressed a
series of buttons. “Ah, I see. To re-
capitulate, one ship, the one which in
all probability is now carrying the Lens-
man, is still unaccounted for. Where is
it? We assume that it left Velantia.
We know that it has not landed upon
or near any solarian planet. Inci-
dentally, we must see to it that it does
not so land. Now, I think, it has be-
140
ASTOUNDING STORIES
come necessary to have that planet
Trenco combed, inch by inch.”
“But sir, how ” began the anx-
ious-eyed underling.
“When did it become necessary to
draw diagrams and make blue prints
for you?” demanded Helmuth, harshly.
“We have ships manned by Rigellians
and other races having the sense of per-
ception. Find out where they are and
get them there at full blast !” He flipped
over two double-throw switches, thus
replacing the image upon his plate by
another.
“It has now become of paramount im-
portance that we complete our knowl-
edge of the Lens of the patrol,” he began,
without salutation or preamble. “Have
you traced its origin yet?”
“I believe so, but I do not certainly
know. It has proved to be a task of
such difficulty ”
“If it had been an easy one I would
not have made a special assignment of it
to you. Go on !”
■ “Everything seems to point to a planet
named Arisia, but of that planet I can
learn nothing definite whatever except
that ”
“J ust a moment !” Helmuth punched
more buttons and listened. “Unex-
plored — unknown — shunned by all
spacemen ”
“Superstition, eh?” he snapped.
“Another of those haunted planets?”
“Something more than ordinary
spacemen’s superstition, sir, but just
what I have not been able to discover.
By combing my department I managed
to make up a crew of those who either
were not afraid of it or have never
heard of it. That crew is now en route
there.”
"Whom have we in that sector of
space ? I find it desirable to check your
findings.”
The department head reeled off a list
of names and numbers, which Helmuth
considered at length. !
“Gildersleeve, the Valerian,” he an-
nounced finally. “He is a good man,
coming along fast. Aside from a firm
belief in his own peculiar gods, be has
shown no signs of weakness. You con-
sidered him ?”
“Certainly.” The henchman, as cold
as his icy chief, knew that explanations
would not satisfy Helmuth, therefore he
offered none. “He is raiding at the mo-
ment, but I will put you on him if you
like.”
“Do so.” And upon Helmuth’s plate
there appeared a deep-space scene of
rapine and pillage.
THE convoying patrol ships, two of
them, had already been blasted out of
existence ; only a few idly drifting
masses of debris remaining to show that
they had ever been. Needle rays were
at work, and soon the merchantman
hung inert and helpless. The pirates,
scorning to use the emergency inlet port,
simply blasted away the entire entrance
panel. Then they boarded, an armored
swarm, flaming DeLameters spreading
death and destruction before them.
The sailors, outnumbered as they
were and overarmed, fought heroically
— but uselessly. In groups and singly
they fell ; those who were not already
dead being callously tossed out into
space in slitted space suits and with
smashed motors. Only the younger
women — the stewardesses, the nurses,
the one or two such among the few pas-
sengers — were taken as booty ; all others
shared the fate of the crew.
Then the ship plundered from nose
to after jets and every article or thing
of value trans-shipped, the raider drew
off, bathed in the blue-white glare of
the atomic bombs that were destroying
every trace of the merchant ship’s
existence. Then and only then did
Helmuth reveal himself to Gildersleeve.
“A good, clean job of work, captain,”
he commended. “Now, how would you
like to visit Arisia for me— for me,
direct ?”
GALACTIC PATROL
141
A pallor overspread the normally
ruddy face of the Valerian and an un-
controllable tremor shook his giant
frame. But as he considered the impli-
cations resident in Helmuth’s conclud-
ing phrase he licked his lips and spoke.
“I hate to say no, sir, if you order
me to and if there was any way of mak-
ing my crew do it. But we were near
there once, sir, and we — I — they — it
Well, sir, I saw things, sir, and
I was — was warned, sir !”
“Saw what? And was warned of
what ?”
“I can’t describe what I saw, sir. I
can’t even think of it in thoughts that
mean anything. As for the warning,
though, it was very definite, sir. I was
told very plainly that if I ever go near
that planet again I will die a worse
death than any I have dealt out to any
other living being.”
“But you will go there again?”
“I tell you, sir, that the crew will
not do it,” Gildersleeve replied, dog-
gedly. “Even if I were anxious to go,
every man aboard will mutiny if I
tried it.”
“Call them in right now and tell them
that you have been ordered to Arisia!”
THE CAPTAIN did so. But he
had scarcely started to talk when he was
stopped in no uncertain fashion by his
first officer — also, of course, a Valerian
— who pulled his DeLameter and spoke
savagely: “Cut it, chief! We are not
going to Arisia, nor anywhere near
there. I was with you before, you know.
Point course within a quadrant of that
accursed planet and I flash you where
you sit !”
“Hclfhuth, speaking for Boskone!”
ripped from the headquarters’ speaker.
“This is rankest mutiny. You know
the penalty, do you not?”
“Certainly I do. What of it?” the
first officer snapped back.
“Suppose that I tell you to go to
Arisia?” Helmuth’s voice was now soft
and silky, but instinct with deadly men-
ace.
“In that case I tell you to go to hell —
or to Arisia, a million times worse!”
snapped the officer.
“What? You dare speak thus to
met”, demanded the archpirate, sheer
amazement at the fellow’s audacity
blanketing his rising anger.
“I so dare,” declared the rebel, brazen
defiance and unalterable resolve in every
line of fiis hard body and in every linea-
ment of his hard face. “All you can
do is kill us. You can order out enough
ships to blast us out of the ether, but
that’s all you can do. That would be a
clean, quick death and we would have
the fun of taking a lot of the boys along
with us. If we go to Arisia, though,
it would be different — very, very differ-
ent, believe me. . No, Helmuth, and I
say this to your face : If I ever go near
Arisia again it will be in a ship in
which you, Helmuth, in person, are sit-
ting at the controls. If you think this
is an empty dare and don't like it, you
don’t have to take it. Send on your
dogs!”
“That will do! Report yourselves to
Base D under ” Then Helmuth’s
flare of anger passed and his cold reason
took charge. Here was something
utterly unprecedented ; an entire crew of
the hardest-bitten marauders in space
offering open and barefaced mutiny —
no, not mutiny, but actual rebellion — to
him, Helmuth, in his very teeth. And
not a typical, skulking, carefully planned
uprising, but the immovably brazen des-
peration of men making an ultimately
last-ditch stand.
Truly, it must be a powerful super-
stition, indeed, to make that crew of
hard-boiled hellions choose certain death
rather than face again the imaginary —
they must be imaginary — perils of a
planet unknown to and unexplored by
Boskone’s planetographers. But they
were, after all, ordinary spacemen, of
little mental force and of small real
142
ASTOUNDING STORIES
ability. Even so, it was clearly indi-
cated that in this case precipitate action
was to be avoided. Therefore, he went
on calmly and almost without a break.
“Cancel all this that has been spoken
and that has taken place. Continue
with your original orders pending fur-
ther investigation.” Helmuth switched
his plate back to the department head.
“I have checked your conclusions and
have found them correct,” he announced,
as though nothing at all out of the way-
had transpired. “You did well in send-
ing a ship to investigate. No matter
where I am or what I am doing, notify
me instantly at the first sign of irregu-
larity in the behavior of any member
of that ship’s personnel.”
NOR was that call long in coming.
The carefully selected crew — selected
for complete lack of knowledge of
the dread planet which was their objec-
tive-sailed along in blissful ignorance,
both of the real meaning of their mis-
sion and of what was to be its ghastly
end. Soon after Helmuth’s unsatisfac-
tory interview with Gildersleeve and his
mate, the luckless exploring vessel
reached the barrier which the Arisians
had set around their system and through
which no uninvited stranger was al-
lowed to pass.
The free-flying ship struck that frail
barrier and stopped. In the instant of
contact a wave of mental force flooded
the mind of the captain, who, gibbering
with sheer, stark, panic terror, flashed
bis vessel away from that horror-im-
pregnated barrier and hurled call after
frantic call along his beam, back to
headquarters. His first call, in the in-
stant of reception, was relayed to Hel-
muth at his central desk.
“Steady, man; report intelligently!”
that worthy snapped, and his eyes, large
now upon the cowering captain’s plate,
bored steadily, hypnotically into those
of the expedition’s leader. “Pull your-
self together and tell me exactly what
happened. Everything !”
“Well, sir, when we struck some-
thing — a screen of some sort— and
stopped, something came aboard. It
was Oh — ay-ay-e-e 1” his voice
rose to a shriek. But under Helmuth’s
dominating glare he subsided quickly and
went on. “A monster, sir, if there ever
was one. A fire-breathing demon, sir,
with teeth and claws and cruelly barbed
tail. He spoke to me in my own
Crevenian language. He said ”
“Never mind what he said. I did not
hear it, but I can guess what it was. He
threatened you with death in some horri-
ble fashion, did he. not?”
The coldly ironical tones did more to
restore the shaking man’s equilibrium
than reams of remonstrance could have
done. “Well, yes, that was about the
size of it, sir,” he admitted.
“And does that sound reasonable to
you, the commander of a first-class bat-
tleship of Boskone’s fleet?” sneered
Helmuth.
“Well, sir, put in that way, it does
seem a bit far-fetched,” the captain re-
plied, sheepishly.
“It is far-fetched.” The director, in
the safety of his dome, could afford to
be positive. “We do not know exactly
what caused that hallucination, appari-
tion, or whatever it was. You were the
only one who could see it, apparently;
it certainly was not visible on our mas-
ter plates here at base. It was probably
some form of suggestion or hypnotism;
and you know as well as we do that
any suggestion can be thrown off by a
definitely opposed will. But you did
not oppose it, did you?”
“No, sir, I didn’t have time.”
“Nor did you have your screens out,
nor automatic recorders on the trip. Not
much of anything, m fact. I think that
you had better report back here, at full
blast.”
“Oh, no, sir — please!” He knew
what rewards were granted to failures.
GALACTIC PATROL
143
It was
equipped
with all
the arms
and armament — visi plates
and communicators — known to
the military genius of the age.
and Helmuth’s carefully chosen words
had already produced the effect desired
by their speaker. “They took me by
surprise then, but I’ll go through this
next time.”
“Very well. We will give you one
more chance. When you get close to
the barrier, or whatever it is, go inert
and put out all your screens. Man your
plates and weapons, for whatever can
hypnotize can be killed. Go ahead at
144
ASTOUNDING STORIES
full blast, with all the acceleration you
can get. Crash through anything that
opposes you, and beam anything that
you can detect or see. Can you think
of anything else?”
"That should be sufficient, sir.” The
captain’s equanimity was completely re-
stored, now that the warlike prepara-
tions were making more and more
nebulous the sudden, but single, thought
wave of the Arisian.
“Proceed!”
THE PLAN was carried out to the
letter. This time the pirate craft struck
the frail barrier inert, and its slight
force offered no tangible bar to the
prodigious mass of metal. But this time,
since the barrier was actually passed,
there was no mental warning and no
possibility of retreat.
Many men have skeletons in their
closets. Many have probias, things of
which they are consciously afraid.
Many others have them, not consciously,
but buried deep in the subconscious,
specters which seldom or never rise
above the threshold of perception. Every
sentient being has, if not such specters
as these, at least a few active or latent
dislikes, dreads, or outright fears. This
is true, no matter how quiet and peace-
ful a life the being has led. 1
These particular pirates, however,
were the scum of space. They were
beings of hard and criminal lives and of
Violent and lawless passions. Their
hates and conscience-searing deeds had
been legion, their count of crimes long,
black, and hideous. Therefore, slight
indeed was the effort required to locate
in their conscious minds— to say nothing
of the noxious depths of their subcon-
scious ones — visions of horror fit to blast
stronger intellects than theirs.
And that is exactly what the Arisian
guardsman did. From each pirate’s total
mind, a veritable charnel pit, he ex-
tracted the foulest, most unspeakable
dregs, the deeply hidden things of which
the subject was in the greatest- fear. Of
these things he formed a whole of hor-
ror incomprehensible and incredible, and
this ghastly whole he made incarnate
and visible to the pirate who was its un-
willing parent; as visible as though it
were composed of flesh and blood, of
copper and steel. Is it any wonder that
each member of that outlaw crew, see-
ing such an abhorrent materialization,
went instantly mad?
It is of no use to go into the horribly
monstrous shapes of the things, even
were it possible ; for each of them was
visible to only one man, and none of
them was visible to those who looked on
from the safety of the distant base. To
them the entire crew simply abandoned
their posts and attacked each other,
senselessly and in insane frenzy, with
whatever weapons came first to hand.
Indeed, many of them fought bare-
handed, weapons hanging unused in
their belts, gouging, beating, clawing,
biting until life had been rived horribly
away. In other parts of the ship De-
Lameters flamed briefly; bars crashed
crunchingly; knives and axes sheared
and trenchantly bit. And soon it was
over — almost. The pilot was still alive,
unmoving and rigid at his controls.
Then he, too, moved, slowly, haltingly,
as though in a trance. Without touch-
ing the controls of the Bergenholm, he
nursed his driving projectors up to
maximum, spun his ship and steadied
her on course; and when Helmuth read
that course even his iron nerves failed
him momentarily. For the ship, still
inert, was pointed, not for its own home
port, but directly toward Grand Base,
the jealously secret planet whose spatial
coordinates neither that pilot nor any
other creature of the pirates’ rank and
file had ever known !
HELMUTH snapped out orders, to
which the pilot gave no heed. His
voice— for the first time in his career —
rose almost to a howl. But the pilot
GALACTIC PATROL
145
still paid no attention. Instead, eyes
bulging with horror and fingers curved
tensely into veritable talons, he reared
upright upon his bench and leaped as
though to clutch and to rend some un-
utterably appalling foe. He leaped over
his board into thin and empty air. He
came down a-sprawl in a maze of naked,
high-potential busbars. His body van-
ished in a flash of searing flame and a
cloud of thick and greasy smoke.
The busbars cleared themselves of
their gruesome “short” and the great
ship, manned now entirely by corpses,
bored on.
“ — stinking klebots, the lily-livered
cowards!” the department head, who
had also been yelling orders, was still
pounding his desk and cursing. “If
they're that afraid — go mad and kill each
■other without being touched — I’ll have
to go myself ”
“No, Sansteed,” Helmuth interrupted,
curtly. “You will not have to go. There
is, after all, I think, something there —
something that you may not be able to
handle. You see, you missed the one
essential key fact.” He referred to the
course, the setting of which had shaken
him to the very core.
"Let be,” he silenced the other’s flood
of question and protest. “It would
serve no purpose to detail it to you now.
Have the ship taken back to port.”
Helmuth knew now that it was not
superstition that made spacemen shun
Arisia. He knew that, from his stand-
point at least, there was something very
seriously amiss.
XII.
HELMUTH sat at his desk, think-
ing — thinking with all the coldly ana-
lytical precision of which he was capable.
This Lensman was, in truth, a foeman
worthy of his steel. The cosmic-energy
drive, developed by the science of a
world which the patrol did not know
existed, was Boskone’s one great item
of superiority. If the patrol could be
AST— 10
kept in ignorance of that drive the strug-
gle would be over in a year ; the culture
of the iron hand would be unchallenged
throughout the galaxy. If, however, the
patrol did manage to learn the secret
of power, to all intents and purposes
unlimited, the war between the two cul-
tures might well be prolonged indefi-
nitely. This Lensman knew that secret
and was still at large, of that he was
all too certain. Therefore, the Lensman
must be destroyed. And that brought
up the Lens.
What was it? A peculiar bauble in-
deed, simple of ultimate quantitative
analysis, but actually impossible of
duplication because of some subtlety of
intra-atomic arrangement. Also, it was
of peculiar and dire potentiality. Not
a man of his force could even wear one;
he had watched several of them die
horribly in attempting to do so. It
must account in some way for the out-
standing ability of the Lensmen, and it
must tie in, somehow, both with Arisia
and with the thought screens. This
Lens was the one thing possessed by the
patrol which his own forces did not
have. He must and would have it, for
it was undoubtedly a powerful arm.
Not to be compared, of course, with
their own monopoly of cosmic energy —
but that monopoly was now threatened,
and seriously. That Lensman must be
destroyed.
But how? It was easy to say “Cpmb
Trenco, inch by inch,” but doing it
would prove a Herculean task. Sup-
pose that the Lensman should again es-
cape, in that volume of so fantastically
distorted media? He had already es-
caped twice, in much clearer ether than
Trenco’s. However, if this information
should never get back to Prime Base,
little harm would be done. Ships could
and would Ire thrown around the
solarian system in such numbers that
not even a grain-of-dust meteorite could
pass that screen without detection.
Nothing — nothing whatever — would be
146
ASTOUNDING STORIES
allowed to enter that system until this
whole affair had been settled. There
were other patrol bases, of course, hut
with the Prime Base isolated, nothing
really serious could happen. So much
for the Lensman. Now about getting
the secret of the Lens.
Again, how? There was something
upon Arisia, and that something was
connected in some way with the Lens
and with thought — possibly also with
the new thought screens. Whatever it
was, it had mental power, of that there
was no doubt. Out of the full sphere
of space, what was the mathematical
probability that the pilot of that death
ship would have set, by accident, his
course so exactly upon this planet?
Vanishingly small. Treachery would
not explain the facts. The pilot had
been insane when he had laid the course.
As an explanation, mental force alone
seemed fantastic, but none other as yet
presented itself as a possibility. Also,
it was supported by the unbelievable,
the absolutely definite refusal of Gilder-
sleeve's normally fearless crew even to
approach the planet. It would take an
unheard-of mental force so to affect such
crime-hardened veterans.
Helmuth was not one to underesti-
mate an enemy. Was there a man be-
neath that dome, save himself, of suffi-
cient mental caliber to undertake the
now necessary mission to Arisia ? There
was not. He himself had the finest
mind on the planet ; else that other had
deposed him long since and had sat
at the control desk himself. He was
sublimely confident that no outside
thought could break down his definitely
opposed will — and besides, there were
the thought screens, his own personal
property as yet. Of no other will could
he say the same; no other would he
trust with those screens. Of all his
force, he was the only one whom he
could be sure of. Therefore, he would
go himself.
It has already been made clear that
Helmuth was not a fool. No more was
he a coward. If he himself could best
of all his force do a thing, that thing he
did, with the coldly ruthless efficiency
that marked alike his every action and
his every thought.
HOW should he go? Should he ac-
cept that challenge, and take Gilder-
sleeve’s rebellious crew of cutthroats to
Arisia? No. In the event of an out-
come short of complete success, it would
not do to lose face before that band of
ruffians. Moreover, the idea of such
a crew going insane behind him was
not one to be relished. He would go
alone.
“Wolmark. come to the center,” he
ordered. When that worthy appeared,
he went on, “Be seated, as this is a
serious conference. I have watched
with admiration and appreciation, as
well as some mild amusement, the de-
velopment of your lines of information,
particularly those covering affairs which
are most distinctly not in your depart-
ment. They are, however, efficient.
You already know exactly what has
happened." A definite statement this,
is no wise a question.
“Yes, sir,” Wolmark said quietly. He
was somewhat taken aback, but not at
all abashed.
“That is the reason you are here now.
I thoroughly approve of you. I am
leaving the planet for approximately
twenty days, and you arc the l>est man
in the organization to take charge in my
absence.”
“I suspected that you would be leav-
ing, sir.”
“I know you did. But I am now
informing you. merely to make sure that
you develop no peculiar ideas in my ab-
sence, that there are at least a few things
which you do not suspect at all. That
safe, for instance,” Helmuth said, nod-
ding toward g peculiarly shimmering
globe of force anchoring itself in air.
“Even your highly efficient spy system
GALACTIC PATROL
147
has not been able to learn a thing about
that.”
“No, sir, we have not — yet,” he could
not forbear adding.
“Nor will you, with any skill or force
known to man. But keep on trying; it
amuses me. I know, you see, of all
your attempts. But to get on. I now
say, and for your own good I advise
you to believe, that failure upon my
part to return to this desk will prove
highly unfortunate for you.”
“I believe that, sir. Any man of
intelligence would make some such ar-
rangement, if he could. But sir, sup-
pose that the Arisians ”
“If your ‘if he could’ implies a doubt,
act upon it and learn wisdom,” Helmuth
advised him coldly. “You should know
by this time that I neither gamble nor
bluff. I have made arrangements to
protect myself, both from enemies, such
as the Arisians and the patrol, and from
friends, such as ambitious youngsters
who are making arrangements to sup-
plant me. If I were not entirely con-
fident of getting back here safely, my
dear Wolmark, I would not go.”
“You misunderstood me, sir. Really,
I have no idea of supplanting you.”
“Not until you get a good opportu-
nity, you mean. I understand you
thoroughly; and, as I have said before,
I approve of you. Go ahead with all
your plans. I have kept at least one
lap ahead of you so far, and if the time
should ever come when I can no longer
do so, I shall no longer be fit to speak
for Boskone. You understand, of
course, that the most important matter
now in work is the search for the Lens-
man, of which the combing of Trenco
and the screening of the solarian system
are only two phases.
“Yes, sir.”
“Very well. I can, I think, leave
matters in your hands. If anything
really serious comes up, such as a de-
velopment in the Lensman case, let me
know at once. Otherwise do not call
me. Take the desk.” Helmuth strode
away.
He was whisked to the space port,
where his special speedster awaited him.
FOR HIM the trip to Arisia was
neither long nor tedious. The little
racer was fully automatic, and as it tore
through space he worked as coolly and
efficiently as he was wont to do at his
desk. Indeed, more so, for here he
could concentrate without interruption.
Many were the matters he planned and
the decisions he made, the while his port-
folio of notes grew thicker and thicker.
As he neared his destination he put
away his work, actuated his special
mechanisms, and waited. When the
speedster struck the barrier and stopped,
Helmuth wore a faint, hard smile; but
that smile disappeared with a snap as
a thought crashed into his supposedly
shielded brain.
“You are surprised that your thought
screens are not effective ?” The thought
was coldly contemptuous. “Wherever,
think you, originated those screens?
We did not foresee your theft of them
from Velantia, but think you that we
would allow to remain at large a thing
which we could not neutralize?
“Know, fool, once and for all, that
Arisia does not want and will not
tolerate uninvited visitors. Your pres-
ence is particularly distasteful, repre-
senting as you do a despotic, degrading,
and antisocial culture. Evil and good
are, of course, purely relative, so it
cannot lx* said in absolute terms that
your culture is evil. It is, however,
based upon greed, hatred, corruption,
violence, and fear. Justice it does not
recognize, nor mercy, nor truth except
as a scientific utility. It is basically op-
posed to liberty. Now liberty — of per-
son, of thought, of action — is the basis
and the goal of civilization to which
you are opposed, and with which any
148
ASTOUNDING STORIES
really philosophical mind must find it-
self in accord.
“Inflated overweeningly by your
warped and perverted ideas, by your
momentary success in dominating your
handful of minions, tied to you by bonds
of greed, of passion, and of crime, you
come here to wrest from us the secret
of the Lens — from us, who were already
an ancient race when the remotest an-
cestors of your own were still wriggling
in their planet’s primordial slime.
“You consider yourself cold, hard,
ruthless. Comparatively you are weak,
soft, tender as a child unborn. That you
may learn and appreciate that fact is one
reason why you are living at this pres-
ent moment. Your lesson will now
begin.”
Then Helmuth, starkly rigid, unable
to move a muscle, felt delicate probes
enter his brain. One at a time they
pierced his innermost being, each to a
definitely selected center. It seemed
that each thrust carried with it the ulti-
mate measure of exquisitely poignant
anguish possible of endurance, but each
successive needle carried with it an even
more keenly unbearable thrill of agony.
Helmuth was not calm and cold now.
He would have screamed in wild aban-
don; but even that relief was denied
him. He could not even scream ; all
he could do was sit there and suffer.
Then he began to see things. There,
actually materializing in the empty air
of the speedster, he saw, in endless
procession, things he had done, either in
person or by proxy, both during his
ascent in his present high place in the
pirates’ organization and since the at-
tainment of that place. Long was the
list, and black. As it unfolded his tor-
ment grew more and ever more in-
tense ; until finally, after an interval
that might have been a fraction of a
second or might have been untold hours,
he could stand no more. He fainted,
sinking beyond the reach of pain into a
sea of black consciousness.
HE AWAKENED white and shak-
ing, wringing wet with perspiration and
so weak that he could scarcely sit erect,
but with a supremely blissful realization
that, for the time being at least, his
punishment was over.
“This, you will observe, has been a
very mild treatment,” the cold Arisian
accents went on inside his brain. “Not
only do you still live, you are even still
sane. We now come to the second rea-
son why you have not been destroyed.
Your destruction by us would not be
good for that struggling young civiliza-
tion which you oppose.
“We have given that civilization an
instrument by virtue of which it should
become able to de’stroy you and every-
thing for which you stand. If it cannot
do so, it is not yet ready to become a
civilization and your obnoxious culture
shall be allowed to conquer and to flour-
ish for a time.
“Now go back to your dome. Do
not return. We well know that you
will not have the temerity to do so in
person. Do not attempt to do so by
any form whatever of proxy.”
There were no threats, no warnings,
no mention of consequences ; but the
level and incisive tone of the Arisian
put a fear into Helmuth’s cold heart the
like of which he had never before known.
He whirled his speedster about and
hurled her at full blast toward his home
planet. It was only after many hours
that he was able to regain even a
semblance of his customary poise, and
days elapsed before he could think
coherently enough to consider, as a
whole, the shocking, the unbelievable
thing that had happened to him.
He wanted to believe that the crea-
ture, whatever it was. had been bluff-
ing — that it could not kill him, that it
had done its worst. In a similar case he
would have killed without mercy, and
that course seemed to him the only log-
ical one to pursue. His cold reason,
however, would not allow him to enter-
GALACTIC PATROL
149
tain that comforting belief. Deep down
he knew that the Arisian could have
killed him as easily as it had slain the
lowest member of his band, and the
thought chilled him to the marrow.
What could he do? What could he
do ? Endlessly, as the miles and light
years reeled off behind his hurtling
racer, this question reiterated itself ; and
when his home planet loomed close it
was still unanswered.
SINCE Wolmark believed implicitly
Hclmuth’s statement that it would be
poor technique to oppose his return, the
planet’s screens went down at Hel-
muth’s signal. His first act was to call
all the department" heads to the center,
for an extremely important council of
war.
■ There he told them everything that
had happened, calmly and concisely,
concluding: “They are aloof, disinter-
ested, unpartisan to a degree I find it
impossible to understand. They disap-
prove of us on purely philosophical
grounds, but they will take no active
part against us as long as we stay away
from their solar system. Therefore, we
cannot obtain knowledge of the Lens by
direct action, hut there are other methods
which shall Ire worked out in due
course.
“The Arisians do approve of the pa-
trol, and have helped them to the ex-
tent of giving them the Lens. There,
however, they stop. If the Lensmen do
not know how to use their Lenses effi-
ciently — and I gather that they do not
— we ‘shall be allowed to conquer and
to flourish for a time.’ We will con-
quer, and we will see to it that the time
of our flourishing will be a long one
indeed.
“The whole situation, then, boils
down^to this : our cosmic energy against
the Lens of the patrol. Ours is the
much more powerful arm, but our only
hope of immediate success lies in keep-
ing the patrol in ignorance of our cos-
mic-energy receptors and converters.
One Lensman already has that knowl-
edge. Therefore, gentlemen, it is very
clear that the death of that Lensman
has now become absolutely imperative.
We must find him, if it means the
abandonment of our every other enter-
prise throughout the galaxy. Give me
a full report upon the screening of the
solarian system.”
“It is done, sir,” came quick reply.
“That system is completely blockaded.
Ships are spaced so closely that even
the electromagnetic detectors have a
five-hundred-per-cent overlap. Visual
detectors have at least two-hundred-fifty-
per-cent overlap. Nothing as large as
one centimeter in any dimension can get
through without detection and observa-
tion.”
“And how about the search of
Treneo?”
“Results are still negative. One of
our ships, a Rigellian, with papers all
in order, visited Treneo space port
openly. No one was there except the
regular force of Rigellians. Our captain
was in no position to be too inquisitive,
but the missing ship was certainly not
in the port and he gathered that he was
the first visitor they had had in a month.
We learned on Rigel IV that Tregonsee,
the Lensman actually there, has been
there for a month and will not be re-
lieved for another month. He was the
only Lensman there. We are, of course,
carrying on the search for the rest of
the planet. About half the personnel of
each vessel to land has been lost. But
they started with double crews and re-
placements are being sent.”
“The Lensman Tregonsee ’s story may
or may not be true,” Helmuth mused.
“It makes little difference. It would be
impossible to hide that ship in the
Treneo space port from even a casual
inspection, and if the ship is not there
the Lensman is not. He may be hid-
ing somewhere else on the planet, but I
doubt it. Continue to search, neverthe-
150
ASTOUNDING STORIES
less. There are many things he may
have done. I will have to consider them,
one by one.”
But Helmuth had very little time to
consider what Kinnison might have
done, for the Lensman had left Trenco
long since. Because of the flare baffles
upon his driving projectors his pace was
slow ; but to compensate for this con-
dition the distance to be covered was
short. Therefore, even as Helmuth
was cogitating upon what next to do,
the Lensman and his able crew were ap-
proaching the far-flung screen of Bos-
konian war vessels investing the entire
solar system.
To approach that screen undetected
was a physical impossibility, and before
Kinnison realized that he was in a dan-
ger zone six tractors had flicked out,
liad seized his ship, and had jerked it
up to combat range. But the Lensman
was ready for anything, and again
everything happened at once.
WARNINGS screamed into the dis-
tant pirate base and Helmuth, tense at
his desk, took personal charge of his
mighty fleet. On the field of action
Kinnison’s screens flamed out in stub-
born defense ; tracers and tractors
snapped under his slashing shears; the
baffles disappeared in an incandescent
flare as he shot maximum blast into his
drive; and space again became suffused
with the output of his now ultra-powered
multiplex scrambler.
And through that murk the Lensman
directed a thought toward Earth, with
the full power of mind and Lens.
“Port Admiral Haynes — Prime Base !
Port Admiral Haynes — Prime Base !
Urgent ! Kinnison calling from the
direction of Sirius — urgent !” he sent
out the fiercely-driven message.
It so happened that at Prime Base
it was deep night, and Port Admiral
Haynes was sound asleep. But his ever-
vigilant Lens received the message, and
like the trigger-nerved old space cat that
he was, the admiral came instantly
awake. Scarcely had an eye flicked
open than his answer had been hurled
back: “Haynes acknowledging. Send
it, Kinnison !”
“Coming in, in a pirate ship — Van-
Buskirk, Thorndyke, and I, and a crew
of Velantians. All the pirates in space
are on our necks. But we’re coming
in, in spite of hell and high water !
Don’t send up any ships to help us
down. They could blast you out of
space in a second, but they can’t stop
us. Get ready. It-won't be long now !”
Then, after the port admiral had
sounded the emergency alarm, Kinnison
went on : “Our ship carries no mark-
ings, but there's only one of us and
you'll know which one it is. We’ll be
doing the dodging. They'd be crazy to
follow us down to base, with all the stuff
you’ve got, but they act crazy enough to
do almost anything. If they do follow
us down, get ready to give ’em every-
thing you've got. Here we are!”
Pursued and pursuers had touched
the outermost fringe of the stratosphere ;
and, slowed down to optical visibility by
even that highly rarefied atmosphere, the
battle raged in incandescent splendor.
One ship was spinning, twisting, loop-
ing, gyrating, jumping and darting
hither and thither— performing every
weird maneuver that the fertile and agile
mind of the Lensman could improvise —
to shake off the horde of attackers.
The pirates, on the other hand, were
desperately determined that, whatever
the cost, that Lensman should not land.
Tractors would not hold and the inertia-
less ship could not be rammed. There-
fore, their strategy was that which had
worked so successfully four times before
in similar case — to englobe the ship
completely and thus beam her down.
And while attempting this englobement
they so massed their forces as to drive
the Lensman’s vessel as far as possible
away from the grim and tremendously
GALACTIC PATROL
151
powerful fortifications of the patrol’s
Prime Base, almost directly below them.
BUT those four other patrol-manned
pirate ships which the pirates had re-
captured had not been driven by Lens-
men; and in this ship Kinnison, the
Lensman, was now calling upon his
every resource of instantaneous nervous
reaction, of brilliant brain and of light-
ning hand, to avoid that fatal trap. And
avoid it he did, by series after series of
fantastic maneuvers never set down in
any manual of space combat.
Powerful as were the weapons of
Prime Base, in that thick atmosphere
their effective range was less than fifty
miles. Therefore the gunners, idle at
their controls, and the officers of the
superdreadnaughts, chained by definite
orders to the ground, fumed and swore
as, powerless to help their battling fel-
lows, they stood by and watched in their
plates the furious engagement so high
overhead.
But slowly, so slowly, Kinnison won
his way downward, keeping as close
over base as he could without being en-
globed. Finally he managed to get
within range of the gigantic projectors
of the patrol. Only the heaviest of the
fixed-mount guns could reach that mad
whirlpool of ships, but each one of them
raved out against the same spot at pre-
cisely the same instant.* In the inferno
which that spot instantly became, not
even a full-driven wall shield could en-
dure, and a vast hole yawned where
pirate ships had been. Th6 beams flicked
off, and, timed by his Lens, Kinnison
shot his ship through that hole before
it could be closed, and arrowed down-
ward toward base at maximum blast.
Ship after ship of the pirate horde
followed him down in madly suicidal
last attempts to blast him out, down to-
ward the terrific armament of the base.
Prime Base itself, the most dreaded, the
most heavily armed, the most impregna-
ble fortress of the Galactic Patrol 1
Nothing afloat could even threaten that
citadel. The overbold attackers simply
disappeared in brief flashes of coruscant
vapor.
Kinnison flashed to ground in a free
landing and called his commander.
“Did any of the other boys beat us
in, sir?” he asked.
“No, sir,” came the curt response.
Congratulations, felicitations, and cele-
bration would come later; he was now
the port admiral receiving an official re-
port.
“Then, sir, I have the honor to report
that the expedition has succeeded.” And
he could not help adding informally,
youthfully exultant at the success of his
first real mission, “We’ve brought home
the bacon!”
{To be Continued.)
WE GROW
And as we
grow, we learn.
Italian scientist, Mario Marcini, makes persons invisible under
electric rays, in Milan demonstration.
Discovery of electrons heavier than any hitherto known to
science, reported by Dr. Carl D. Anderson and Professor Seth
Neddermeyer of the California Institute of Technology.
A truly scientific mind which understands the integrating
factors in the universe cannot help believing in God, according to
Dr. Robert A. Millikan, Nobel Prize Winner and internationally
distinguished scientist.
James Cuffery, of the Harvard Observatory, reports a newly
revealed subsystem in the universe, contributing important new
clues to the structure of the Milky Way.
Encke’s Comet, a periodic visitor .every three years since its
discovery in 1786, is due again — but since it never comes closer than
the 13th magnitude we won’t be apt to see it!
Wonders in the world of science are continuous and ever-
present. Man’s discovery of them, or of new facts concerning them,
is unbelievably constant. No one, whose brain is capable of absorb-
ing the record of progress as it is recorded, can fail to be spellbound
when he contemplates the unutterable vastness of the planned and
integrated universe— “ the glory which is the heavens! ”
I wanted to call your attention to these facts, because though
they represent the progress of a single earth month in part, they
suggest clearly that motivated, logical science-fiction is not sen-
sational; rather it is conservative delineation of humanized and
emotionalized scientific discovery and conjecture.
Who of us ever read a more vivid science-fiction plot than the
editorial, reprinted from the New York Times on Page 105 of this
issue of Astounding Stories?
Brass Tacks is back! See it? Just four letters this time, letters
which explain why. I’m just as anxious to see your “ brickbats and
flowers ’’ back again, as you are to send them. We won’t discard
“ Science Discussions ’’ — it’s too popular — but as always, I bow to
YOUR will as soon as I’m convinced. Now it’s up to you. How do
you like the stories in this issue? Brass Tacks is yours. Fill it!
I hope you are enjoying “Galactic Patrol” as much as I did when I
read it. But tell me anyway — and give me your suggestions. Be-
tween us we’ll boost Astounding to an all-time high in 1938.
The Editor.
AN DPEN FORUM OF CONTROVERSIAL OPINION
g— ■ 1 ""' =St
Effects of Gravitation .
Dear Editor:
1 disagree with C. T. C.’s theories about ef-
fects of different gravitation, as expressed in
his letter in your magazine.
If the inhabitant of the planet 1.00Q times
earth's size visited our planet ami jumped 100
feet into the air, he would fall according to
the formula v 2 =u 2 = 2 £« (where **v” is the final
velocity, “u” the initial velocity, **f” the ac-
celeration and “g” the distance covered), re-
gardless of his weight.
Since w ; e are considering his fall, bis initial
velocity is zero and “u” is neglected. Thus, as
acceleration due to our gravity is 32 ft. per sec.
per sec., we have :
v 2 — 6400 (distance 100 ft.)
or v = 80 ft. per sec.
The man then hits the ground at SO ft. per
sec. Now, on his planet, “g” is presumably
32,000 ft. per sec. per sec., therefore, substitut-
ing for same “v.”
80 2 =64,000 s.
6,400
or = s.
64,000
Therefore, the speed at which lie hits the
ground from 100 ft. on earth is the same speed
at which he hits his planet’s surface from 1/10
ft. And if he can’t take a drop of 1/15 inch
on his own planet — poor chap. (This neglects
air resistance, of course.)
Similarly, an earthman on the moon, al-
though able to jump 6 times higher, would ac-
celerate 6 times slower, in descent, than on
earth.
1 have also a rather interesting problem. If
a clock of immense size were sent out on a
certain day at the speed of light at noon on
that day, from earth, would the hands always
seem to point to 12 o’clock to us? (Neglecting
Einstein, of course.)
My idea is that after an hour it would be
one light hour away from earth and the light
we saw would have left it one hour before, or
at noon. Similarly, after a year, the light we
saw would leave it a year before, as it would
be one light year away. If any one con spot
a flaw in the reasoning, I’ll be surprised. —
W. Hooper, 77 Taylor Lane, Denton, Man-
chester, England.
Interchange of Personalities.
Dear Editor:
I feel the urge to pen a hasty eonitnent ««
the story Frontier of the Unkntnrn by Norman
L. Knight, concerning (be interchange-of -person-
alities idea. First of all, as the author himself
suggests in the story, it would seem queer if two
personalities were to interchange when, by the
laws of chance, they would be most likely to do
their jumping at random, so that if Wilkes be-
came Oglethorpe, then Oglethorpe might become
Jones or even Sing Lo.
He says that transplanting brains is beyond
modern surgery, yet 1 believe that this would be
a minor operation compared with the changing
of memories f rorn one brain to another. Con-
sider the multitudinous pictures on a man’s mem-
ory, each one recorded by an optical process of
far greater intricacy than the confessedly cum-
bersome television process. The personalities
might change, but hardly the memories.
Oiven this reservation, I will say that trans-
migration, interchange, or what not, is not only
possible, but highly probable. I might suggest
situations where it would seem likely but am
afraid it might stir up a hornets’ nest, so will
allow you to do your own guessing. — H. A.
Harris, 740 — 19th Street, Merced, Calif.
Explaining “ Spirit Rapping ”?
Dear Editor :
Oliver Saari’s story. Time Bender, has induced
me to do a little theorizing.
Let us say that there is, at a certain time.
154
ASTOUNDING STORIES
“x" amount of matter in the universe, and “e”
amount Of energy. Then if a man of “n” mass
travels backward in time to this particular in-
stant aforementioned, the total amount of mat-
ter is then “x” plus “n” while, if no other such
mass changing occurrences take place, the
amount of matter in that future is “x” minus
“n.”
Only a corresponding loss and gain respec-
tively in the amount of energy could explain
this conservation of energy and matter, advo-
cates say what they may. But you can’t rob
or add energy to a universe nilly-willy ! Or
perhaps time doesn’t enter in on the matter.
Perhaps you can add matter to a universe pro-
vided you take it away on some future date.
Come on. fellows, send in your letters !
And now Dr. Clark ! You say the space rep-
resented by (e/n) 00 would be a world of light
with no velocity, while (e/n)- 00 space is one
wherein light would have infinite velocity. But
any mathematician will tell you because of the
nature of the tangent graph (as the angle of a
triangle “A” approaches 90® the tangent of the
angle approaches infinity, when it becomes
greater than 90® the tangent decreases from
minus infinity) that on this graph, plus and
minus infinity coincide somewhere and so must
be equal. Then light traveling at infinite ve-
locity would, by this token, also have no
velocity V
To go to still another topic, science has al-
ways looked upon so-called “supernatural” phe-
nomena with great scorn. But one must admit
that the mind is in some way linked with mat-
ter and energy. When the process of thinking
takes place, or a sensory impulse is sent along
the nerves, energy is no doubt released. Could
It not be possible for certain gifted individuals
to accomplish, because of the ability to liberate
thought energy in large quantities, “supernatu-
ral” acts?”
I do not see why a powerful mind should
not be able to produce hallucinations that make
a house haunted or a person seem cursed, or
even go so far as to be able to move matter,
accounting for spirit rapping, etc. — Rudolph
Castowu, 42 Amity Place, Staten Island, N. Y.
Food for Thought .
Dear Editor :
For some time I have been reading in your
magazine of the “bitter cold of outer space,” and
of people “frozen instantly and drifting forever
in airless space.” These phrases are continually
coming up in interplanetary stories and I can
find no reason for them.
To begin with, heat, as I understand it, is
nothing but wave motion in the “ether” of the
particular frequency that affects the heat-sensi-
tive nerves of the body. It is no different from
other wave motion in space, except in wave
length and certain properties which are the
result of its wave length. When the frequency
of heat becomes high enough, it does uot act
upon the heat-sensitive nerves, but upon the
nerves of the eye, making us to see the color
red. Both light and heat have power to stimu-
late chemical reactions : both can be reflected,
absorbed or radiated ; ouly the body makes a
difference between the high and low frequency
and calls them light and heat. Now with this
similarity in mind let us make an imaginary
flight out into space,
We are out in the void millions of miles from
the nearest solid body ; let us examine the “bit-
ter cold of outer space.” As the only appreci-
able radiation comes from the sun. one half of
our ship appears black, the other half in dark-
ness. Remember that this darkness is not only a
light shadow but a heat shadow as well. Take
some suitable type of thermometer and hold it
in the shadow of the ship. The temperature
drops slowly to near absolute zero. Of course
it drops slowly — think of the inner container of
a thermos bottle, both of them suspended in a
vacuum. It is kept above absolute zero by the
faint radiation of the ship and the stars — not
by the sun. So this is the temperature of space.
But wait ! We say a body is hot when it is
radiating heat. Can space radiate anything?
No. Only matter can radiate. So space itself
has no temperature. If we place our ther-
mometer on the sunny side and insulate it
against radiation on its dark side, the tempera-
ture would rise. The surface of the moon rises
to terrific temperatures at its noon, although it
is actually in the “bitter cold of space.” Natu-
rally, a man in space in the shadows of some
planet would freeze — but so would a man on
earth were not the air here to warm him. The
only difference between a man in space and a
man on earth is : the man in space gets his
heat directly from the sun : the man on earth
gets his indirectly, but more evenly, from the
sun.
Thus we see that space is neither hot nor
cold ; the temperature of a body in it depends
entirely on its ability to absorb and hold heat.
Also, that a man in shadow in space does not
“freeze instantly” but slowly radiates heat. As
a matter of fact, a man in cold water would
lose heat more quickly for the first few degrees
than a man in the vacuum of space.
Among other fallacies in connection with “the
bitter cold of space” is the one of the space ship
with walls like a thermos bottle. The only dif-
ference this would make is to increase the sur-
face of radiation b/ increasing the diameter of
the ship. The ship is already in a vacuum.
Why put another wall around it?
If the air were suddenly let out of a ship by
a puncture of the outer wall, the temperature
would drop rapidly by the cooling effect of the
expansion of the air. In this case the tem-
perature (absolute) varies in proportion to the
absolute pressure (P/T = P'/T' ). All that
would be necessary to keep out “the bitter cold
of space” would be to keep the air in, not to use
a heat insulator as well.
There seems to be some argument about the
reaction of rockets in n vacuum. Mr. C. Fine’s
suggestion that rockets are propelled by a kick
like a fire hose has always been taken for
granted by laymen much the same as the “apple
fell just because it was down, not because of
gravity.” I think that if Mr. Fine will read
my arguments he will see that Mr. Yerke was
right, after all.
Think of a rocket tube (closed — a cylinder will
do) under internal pressure of, say a ton to
the square inch, on both ends and on the
curved sides. So far nothing has happened.
Now remove one of the ends. The pressure is
now on the curved walls, but only on one end.
The cylinder has pressing against one end a
pressure of a ton to the square inch. The op-
posite end is open, so there is no opposing pres-
sure. The tube leaps away from the open end
because of the pressure on the closed end. In
a rocket ship the pressure is constantly main-
tained by burning (consequently expanding)
gases. The efficiency of a rocket ship depends
on the difference of pressure of the two ends.
If the difference is lowered by preventing the
escape of the gas by closing it as before, or by
operating the rocket in air, some of its effi-
ciency is lost. Examine these two equations for
a rocket ship operating at one ton to the square
inch :
Difference in air :
2000 — 14.7 = 1985.3 per square inch
Difference in vacuum :
2000 — 0.0 = 2000.0 per square inch
This and air resistance make rockets more
efficient in a vacuum. Being somewhat of a
cynic, I wonder what would happen to a man
such as in Seeker of To morrow that stepped
into a vacuum with nothing but an oxygen tank.
What about all the air dissolved in his blood at
fifteen pounds pressure. Have you ever heard
what happened to divers who come up too fast
to allow it to bubble out ; or have you ever
seen carbonated water when the pressure is
removed? Think it over. — Gib Brereton, 31G
11th Street East, North Vancouver, B. C.
SCIENCE DISCUSSIONS
155
Identical Twins.
Dear Editor :
In his letter Mr. C. B. Loomis gives the fol-
lowing statement : “One identical twin is pre-
cisely like the other, unless they be of opposite
sexes.” Evidently Mr. Loomis does not know
much about what determines the sex of an in-
dividual or he would have known that identical
twins cannot be of opposite sexes. I will try
to make this fact clear to Mr. Loomis.
To begin with, I will state some commonly
known principles of reproduction. . Most of the
lower plants and animals reproduce by asexual
means, that is without the union of sex cells.
Some of the sexual means of reproduction are
binary fission, budding and vegetative propaga-
tion. Some animals reproduce accidentally by
regeneration, as when a starfish is cut in two
each of its parts develop into a new, complete
starfish.
But the higher plants and anmials reproduce
by sexual means, that is by the union of sex
cells. The male sex cells are called sperms and
the female sex cells are called egg cells. Each
of these contain half the chromosomes found
in every other cell in the individual’s body,
that is, if every cell in an organism’s body has
ten chromosomes then there are five chromo-
somes in the sperm cell and five chromosomes
in the egg cell. The chromosomes, by the way,
are the bearers of hereditary qualities.
During the process of fertilization the sperm
and egg unite and form a normal cell of ten
*-hromo8omes. This normal cell divides by
binary fission and produces a many-celled em-
bryo which develops into an individual organism.
It is commonly known that man has forty-
eight chromosomes, but more recent investiga-
tions have proven that women have forty-nine
chromosomes. The reason for this is that there
are two kinds of sperm cells. One type of
sperm cell has twenty-four chromosomes and
the other type has twenty-five. All egg cells
have twenty-four chromosomes only. When a
sperm cell of the first type unites with an egg
cell the result is forty-eight chromosomes and
the embryo develops into a male individual.
But when a sperm cell of the second type fer-
tilizes an egg cell the result is forty-nine chromo-
somes which develops into a female organism.
Now we will see how these principles apply to
twins. There are two different kinds of twins.
The first type is the result of two different
sperms uniting with two different egg cells and
so producing two different individuals. These
twins may be of opposite sex or the same sex,
depending upon the types of sperma. These
twins will not have the same heredity and may
differ vastly from one another; therefore, they
will not be identical twins.
The second type of twins is the result of one
sperm uniting with one egg. When the fer-
tilized egg cell divides into two cells to begin
the production of the embryo, the two cells
sometimes drift apart and produce two embryos.
The result is identical twins, for they both have
the same heredity and both are the same sex,
either male or female, depending upon the type
of sperm cell involved. 1 hope that I have
made this clear to Mr. Loomis. — Prank DeSua,
310 Conner Avenue, Monessen, Pa.
Antigravity.
Dear Editor :
Regarding Atlantis: No one seems to have
mentioned the finding of many cities beneath
the waters of the Mediterranean or that the re-
mains of sea algae and shellfish have been found
near the top' of the Great Pyramid.
Regarding time travel : I believe it is pos-
sible to travel in time — but only into the past.
Remember the Einstein Express and the jingle
quoted by its leading character? However, to
erie time travel is not a matter of attaining a
speed greater than light — it is a frequency — a
▼ibration — a series of factors tuned slightly
above the frequency of the speed of light. With
the finding of a substance to vibrate with these
factors, an independent source of power within
a vehicle is built of this substance — time travel.
Regarding space travel: I do not see the
need for the tremendous “escape velocity” so
often quoted. We already have elevators mov-
ing at one thousand feet per minute. Do we
need speed greater than that?
What about the stratosphere plane? Wby
can’t these planes be equipped with simple rocket
motors as well as an engine capable of three
hundred miles per hour and use the earth’s
equatorial speed (one thousand miles per hour)
to break loose? (From the thirty-thousand-foot
altitude.)
Why can’t a stratosphere balloon be built to
support a passenger rocket? Then we could
use Its ten-mile height as a leg of our journey
and its hydrogen gas to give the rochet an
extra boost.
For that matter, I do not believe that anti-
gravity is beyond our present science. All we
need is a device to operate at an interfering
frequency to the speed of falling objects. This
device, I am sure, will presently be developed.
Hoping this letter will cause much thongbt. —
M. Erland, 1911 Albermarle Road, Brooklyn,
N. Y.
Answer Following.
Dear Editor:
In the July issue appeared the fourteenth
article of the series, Interplanetary Dividends,
dealing with tbe study of the solar system.
Mr. J. W. Campbell, Jr., mentioned in this
article (Page 4fi) that atomic energy can now
be obtained from sand, limestone and iron, by
influencing it with deutrons from “heavy”
hydrogen.
Will you please inform me as to whether or
not this is correct and, if so, where may I ob-
tain a description of the procedure? — Cecil C*
Conner, Watsonville, California.
See Next Letter.
Dear Editor :
In tbe article, Interplanetary Dividends ,
John W. Campbell, Jr., stated that atomic
power has already been produced in laboratories.
This is of interest to me. I would appreciate
any information you can give me on this subject
or where 1 may obtain this information. —
William Schwaltz.
Atomic-Power Developments.
Dear Mr. Tremaine :
In answer to Mr. Sell waltz and Mr. Conner,
atomic power definitely has been released in tbe
manner I indicated in the article Interplanetary
Dividends. For eiael references, I can only say
that you would do best to look up tbe many
articles on the subject, by using the “Chemical
Abstracts,” physics section, found in any large
public library, and choose those which sound in-
teresting.
Historically, the earliest method of transmu-
tation (and consequent release of atomic power)
was by using the immense striking power of
the particles shot out by radium. It was a
method of conversation basically similar to tbe
method of the early Moslems : force, without
persuasion.
All that makes for an atom’s character, its
stamp as a nitrogen, oxygen or aluminum atom,
lies in the nucleus. In those early days of
atomic structure, the nucleus was believed to
consist wholly of protons, positively charged
particles of mass equal to a hydrogen atom, and
electrons, negative particles of very much
156
ASTOUNDING STORIES
smaller mass (about 1/1 800th that of the
proton) but of equal and opposite electrical
cha rge.
The atom nucleus appeared to hare two physi-
cal characteristics : its mass and its electrical
charge. The mass of the atom nucleus consti-
tuted, practically, the entire mass of the atom,
and was simply the sum of the masses of the
constituent “protons.” (Modern knowledge takes
exception to this, as explained below.)
The electrical charge of the nucleus, however,
was not so simple and was (he factor which
determined the chemical behavior of the atom.
The charge was influenced strongly by the num-
ber of electrons bound in the nucleus, since,
while their mass was too slight to appreciably
influence the mass of the atom, tlieir charges
were equal and opposite to the charges of the far
more massive protons. Thus oxygen, for in-
stance, was said to consist of a nucleus made up
of IS protons (giving an “atomic weight” of
16) and 8 electrons (which didn’t influence the
mass). The 8 negative charges of these nuclear
electrons canceled 8 of the 16 positive charges
of the protons, leaving a residual nuclear charge
of plus 8.
That charge of plus 8 determined the struc-
ture of the rings of planetary electrons which,
circling the nucleus in “planetary orbits,” re-
acted in all chemical actions and were the only
parts of the atom assailable by ordinary means.
The immense energies involved in the structure
of the nucleus itself brought about such fear-
fully concentrated energy effects that no ordi-
nary force could apply a sufficient concentration
of energy to perturb the immensely rigid struc-
ture noticeably.
It was simple enough to knock off a planet-
ary electron, and equally simple for that elec-
tron to jump right back where it came from,
with a net score of no results. If. somehow, an
electron could be knocked off, and induced to
stay off. the atom would no longer be oxygen ;
it would be nitrogen, since an atom having
only 7 orbital electrons is, by definition, an atom
of nitrogeu. But the electrons were not going
to stay away so long, as there were 8 unsatisfied
positive charges on the nucleus.
Two things, they thought, could change that :
add an electron to the nucleus, or subtract a
proton. (Actually, neither works, because the
product in each ease is unstable. But that
theory was immensely difficult to put into ac-
tion. To knock out those nuclear particles, you
must hit an infinitesimal target with a terri-
fic energy concentration. There are few things
on earth that can produce such a concentration
of energy as was required, but the most readily
available one was radium, which, by its natural
and spontaneous disruption of atomic figures,
produces, quite naturally, energy concentrations
of the magnitude involved in transmutation.
That was the day of conversion by force, and
it ran into one huge difficulty right at the
start. Radium produced the needed energy con-
centration. but the bearer of that energy was
nn alpha particle, an atom nucleus in itself, the
nucleus, in fact, of the helium atom, and the
most stable configuration of all. That consisted,
the theory held, of 4 protons and 2 electrons,
giving a net charge of plus 2. Like charges
repel, and the charges follow the inverse square
law, so lhat when the distance is halved, the
repulsion is quadrupled.
And, sadly, the distances involved were super-
ultra-microscopic, so that those repulsions be-
came stupendously great. Fiirst, even an atom-
packed mass such as a solid is almost entirely
empty space, so that random bombardment natu-
rally missed almost everything. Further, if
there were any great angle to the “collision.” it
wasn’t a collision ; the alpha particle sheered
away from the repulsion engendered by 2 like
charges.
Because there were a lot of atoms, and a lot
of alpha particles, something was bound to hap-
pen once in a while. They did get some transmu-
tation, but as far as releasing atomic energy
appreciably, the theory wouldn’t work. Then
they discovered they’d beeu missing something.
It seems, in fact, they’d been missing slightly
more than half the total universe : neutrons — m
particle of mass equal to the proton, and no
charge whatever. It immediately became evideut
that oxygen had a nucleus consisting not of 8
electrons and 16 protons, but of 8 uncharged,
massive neutrons and 8 massive, positively
charged protons. Half its mass, in other words,
was made up of the hitherto undiscovered neu-
tron. (They hadn’t noticed it before because,
being uncharged, it didn't have any handle to
take hold of, and didn’t attract attention.)
A new principle appeared as a corollary; ex-
cepting hydrogeu alone, every atom’s* mass con-
sisted of neutrons to the extent of at least one
half. Further, since the addition of neutrons
didn’t affect an atom's charge, and hence its
properties chemically, a number of them could
be added to a nucleus without changing it chem-
ically, but yet change its atomic weight. Thus,
evidently, in missing the neutron they had over-
looked the particle which, alone, made up more
thau half the matter of the universe.
The next important light on atomic structure
was the discovery that even hydrogen could
follow that rule of one half or more ; this re-
sulted in the discovery first of deuterium and
then of tritium.
To atomic structure, deuterium was im-
meusely important because it consisted of a
neutron that could be handled, which they
hadn't succeeded in doing before.
Starting with deuterium (“heavy” hydrogen),
they ionized it. Tl»[s removed the single plan-
etary electron, leaving a pair, a proton and a
neutron bound together. An electric field ac-
celerates the proton, and the neutron drags
along, too. A large speed is built up, and the
combination is smashed abruptly against a muss
of atoms. The positive charges of the atomic
nuclei repel the protou, decelerating it terrific-
ally. But they don’t affect the neutron in the
slightest; it’s perfectly willing to go ahead, and,
in fact, .its inertia urges it on forcefully.
In atomic terms, the proton and neutron part
company. The physicist has now succeeded iu
getting what he wanted in the first place: a
rapidly moving neutron.
They tried bombarding atoms with that new
particle, and at once, as might be expected, the
whole picture of their results changed im-
mensely. The neutron was not repelled ; it did
not shy away from atomic nuclei. They began
to get a far more important percentage of
transmutations, but still a percentage far too
small to be of importance.
One step remained. Shortly, it was discovered
that sloiv neutrons produced far better results
than did fast ones. A new effect was being
used. Calcium has an atomic weight, accord-
ing to the chemist, of 40.08. By physical analy-
sis, it has been shown that calcium, like lead,
has a number of isotopes, atom types with vary-
ing numbers of neutrons. It always has 20
protons, but there are atoms of weight 40, 42,
43, and 44, containing 20, 22, 23, and 24 neu-
trons. But no atoms of weight 41 containing 21
neutrons. That isotope is unstable ; it cannot en-
dure but explodes spontaneously and violently
if formed. So, suppose we. bombard calcium
with slow neutrons. There is no repulsion, the
slow-moving neutrons drift near an atom, and
the mass a I traction slips the neutron into the
unresisting nucleus.
Then all hell breaks loose in that atom. Ab-
ruptly, it has become a forbidden isotope — it
cannot be — and it doesn’t stay that way. The
atom blows up with a violence that puts radium
to shame. Lithium atomic weight 7 may accept
a neutron, and become lithium-isotope 8 — which
doesn’t exist. It is, instead, 2 helium atoms
of atomic weight 4. Beryllium accepts a neu-
tron, and explodes with an immense violence
that has been known to yield neutrons of
15,000,000,000 volt energies — in place of neu-
trons that slipped in with energies of only 5 or
10 volts! (Radium particles have about one
thousandth as much energy.)
Half the atomic table blows up in the presence
of slow neutrons. Iron forms an unstable iso-
tope, almost any atom of common materials.
Hydrogen and carbon do not ; they are perfectly
stable. This is used in slowing the neutrons
SCIENCE DISCUSSIONS
157
released in the deuterium process described
above. The fast neutrons are shot into blocks
©f paraffin, where, by collision with hydrogen and
carbon atoms, their 50 to 100 kilovolt energies
are reduced to no more than a gentle drift.
(Actually, about equal only to normal heat
motion.)
Sadly, nothing is impervious to neutrons.
Uncharged, they slip easily through any matter,
unless caught in an atomic explosion, or in that
unique atom, cadmium. Most atoms that ab-
sorb neutrons disgorge them again with catas-
trophic results. Cadmium absorbs them— finis.
That’s all. It soaks up neutron's as water is
absorbed in a sponge, except that they can’t be
oqueesed out again.
There is the answer. Atomic power at call,
if you can supply 2 things : a tank that will
hold neutrons ; a tube that will carry the first of
the “nobel gases,” and a slightly more efficient
method of securing the free neutrons would
help. Supplies? Innumerable millions of tons
of heavy hydrogen in sea water.
Atomic power, impossible dream in the days
of charged particle bombardment, does not seem
distant with neutron explosions. — John W.
Campbell, Jr., 418 Central Ave., Orange, New
Jersey.
Gravity vs. Inertia.
Dear Editor:
Richard Wilson asks two questions which I
will attempt to answer.
In the first one he asks about the effects of
acceleration upon a person in an elevator, say-
ing something about gravity having a greater
hold upon the person. The effect of acceleration
has nothing to do with gravity at all. It is all
canned by inertia, which forces a body to tend
to remain in the same place unless some force
acts upon it. Now, when the elevator moves up-
ward, a person tends to remain where he was
before, and therefore presses with greater force
upon the floor of the elevator. However, as soon
as the elevator is moving at a constant speed,
♦his effect stops, because his inertia keeps him
moving with the elevator. Force is exerted only
when the speed is increasing. When the ele-
vator stops, the person tends to keep moving
upward, and he presses upon the floor with less
force until his momentum is extended.
Now for the calculations. The effect of
gravity is to make a falling body accelerate with
an eceeleralion of 32 feet per second per sec-
ond. This, upon a mass of 1 pound, is equal to
a force of 1 pound. In other words, a force
which will give a pound mass an acceleration of
32 feet per second per second is a force of one
pound. If an elevator moves upward with an
acceleration of 3.2 feet per second per second, it
exerts an additional force of 0.1 pound upon
every pound mass in -the elevator, so a 200-
pound person appears to weigh 220 pounds.
To get the effect of a downward-accelerating
elevator reverse reasoning is required. A freely
falling body has no weight. As soon as a force
is put upon it to arrest its fall slightly, its
weight increases in proportion with the force put
upon it, until at the moment when the force is
equal to the mass of the body, causing the body
to be at rest, the body has a weight equal to its
mass.
In a downward-accelerating elevator the body
is not freely falling and it is not at rest, but
ip a condition between the 2. If the elevator is
accelerating at a rate of 3,2 feet per second per
second, l/10th of the force upon the body has
been removed, resulting in the body appearing to
weigh l/10th of its original weight. This, how-
ever, is only as long as the acceleration is ap-
plied. As long as there is no acceleration, the
weight* of the body is the same as the original.
In the second question the questioner seems
to have the idea that time is irrevocably bound
up with the rotation of the earth. That is as
far from the truth as anything can be. A year
is merely a convenient way to measure time and
has- nothing to do with the actual time rate
Itself. If the year comes to be l/10th what it is
now, then people will live 10 years and only
grow old as they formerly did to 1 year. There
is no way to measure time apart from any ma-
terial object. 2 methods which come as close
to it as possible are the speed of light and the
disintegration of radioactive substances. But
one depends upon units of length, and the other
upon units of mass. The speed of light might
be the closest method at that, because it is defi-
nitely constant and is not affected by motion.
But that applies only to relative time rates, and
not to absolute. I doubt if the latter can be
found at all.
But I have strayed from the point. Aside
from the above, there are practical objections to
the problem. A planet cannot possibly move
about the sun in the time of a minute, because
the centrifugal force of the velocity would cause
the planet to move farther away from the sun.
Even if the planet were to approach close to
the surface ©f the sun, it would take an appre-
ciable time to go around. Just consider that in
order to go around the sun in one second, a
velocity of about 2,500,000 miles per second is
required. Far above the speed of light! Bo
the latter part of the question is absurd, unless
you want to consider the effect of high veloci-
ties upon time rates, about which I do not know
much.
Just figured out that according to Kepler’s
third law, a planet at the surface of the sun
would take about 5 hours to go around, at a
speed of about 7,00 miles per second.
On October 31st, there will he held in Phila-
delphia the Third Eastern Science-Fiction Con-
vention. All science-fiction fans are invited.
We will try to make this convention as much
better than the second convention as the sec-
ond was better than the first.
All interested in attending will please write to
me at the address below. — Milton A. Rothman,
Philadelphia Convention Committee, 2113 N.
Franklin Street, Philadelphia, Pa.
A Fourth State of Matter.
Dear Mr. Tremaine:
In the September Astounding, Mr. Robert
Barclay states that I err in my article Stress-
Fluid in stating that the earth’s interior is in
a condition of semifluidity. Mr. Barclay sug-
gests that such a constitution would lead to
breakup under the action of gravitational cross
pulls, and that there would he no visible tide*
at the surface, since the solid body of the earth
would yield to tidal forces and so mask the
tidal effects not visible in the liquid waters of
the surface.
In the article, Stress-Fluid , it was pointed
out that granite could be made to flow under
conditions of extreme pressure, but only very
slowly. As a matter of fact, although for the
purposes of the article I deduced the condition
of the deep interior almost entirely from labora-
tory data and earthquake phenomena, the con-
clusions may be independently checked by astro-
nomical data. I did not include this material
in my article, as it had already been covered, in
some degree, by John W. Campbell, Jr., in bis ar-
ticle The Double World, wherein the interior
constitution of the earth was deduced from
astronomical data. Planets appear to be highly
elastic bodies, forces of a magnitude that pro-
duce minor distortions, and display a very great
rigidity to such action. So does the piece of
granite in the compression block mentioned in
the article.
But if long-time stresses are applied, both
planets and compressed granite flow slowly into
new forms. I called stress-fluid a fourth state
of matter, neither liquid nor solid, yet partaking
of the properties of both. It does in this
respect : it acts as liquid to long-term stresses,
flowing out of the way ; yet to short-term
stresses it displays both rigidity and elasticity.
The earth acts as a rigid, elastic solid to
such things as gravitational cross pulls. Re-
member that, although stress-fluid, the matter
so forced out of natural form retains its normal
solid strength, which normal fluid does not.
Stress-fluid is a very peculiar state — a fourth
state not any more related to liquid state than
158
ASTOUNDING STORIES
to solid, and not to be interpreted entirely on
the basis of liquid behavior. For instance, the
granite rock in the compression cylinder men-
tioned in the article might have a steel ball im-
bedded in it. Although flowing under the great
pressure, as though a liquid in that respect, that
steel ball in its center would be as rigidly im-
mobile as though the rock were still normal.
It would not sink through it. In that, stress-
fluid slate differs from the liquid state. Had
the granite been fused and cast into the new
shape, the true liquid state would have been
attained, and the steel ball would have sunk
through it.
“When great pressure is brought to bear on a
liquid, it returns to solid form,” Mr. Barclay
points out. I would first modify that to “some
liquids,” and then add that we are not dealing
with a liquid, or the molten state, but purely
with the cold solid in stress-fluid condition.
That the isostatic balance of the earth is more
incredible than some of the science-fiction ma-
terial in the magazine does not detract from
its truth. That we do not begin to know all the
truth might be taken as philosophic indication
of the extremely limited powers of man’s im-
agination. but surely not as indication that
facts are impossible. I would, for instance,
hesitate to propose in fiction an animal with
functions quite as preposterous as the normal
biological reactions of the octopus, which suc-
ceeds in digesting its food before swallowing it,
and has developed a completely incredible re-
productive system. — Arthur McCann, 701 Scot-
land Rd., Orange, N. J.
Frequency of Light Waves.
Dear Editor:
In Space Blister, by John D. Clark, Ph.D.,
the author states, in relation to his story, “and
the autumn leaves, which should be red and
yellow, were blue and violet," and also, “light
travels slower inside of the blister than outside,
and the frequency of light waves is, of course,
the same since that depends on the source of the
light and not on the transmitting medium. So,
as a result, the wave length is shorter. Light
that would be bright-red outside is green or blue
inside, and anything that would be green or blue
Unfair?
Dear Mr. Tremaine :
I read everything in every issue — good or bad.
I like stories to be stories, and not crushed by
the weight of science in them. Thus, it was
with regret that I saw many so-called stories,
which were little more than theoretic ramblings,
creeping into Astoundiug. Lately, however, there
has been a vast improvement in the stories, for
which an ardent thanks. Following up the
Smith serial with one by Taine or Campbell
would be excellent. Of course, if you could talk
MeClary into writing another like Rebirth we
wouldn’t mind.
Speaking bluntly, I think the change from
Brass Tacks to Science Discussions was unfair.
Unfair because it was done without consulting
the readers before the change was made. And
since the change we have no way of getting our
protests into print. I suggest that a vote be
takeu to see which department the readers pre-
fer — for, after all, it is supposed to be their
corner.
As to the value of Science Discussions — where
is it? When an article is accepted by you and
or violet normally, shows up just as plain ultra-
violet.”
I do not offer the following as necessarily be-
ing the absolute truth. However, it is a
thought which should be given to this phenome-
non. The facts given by the author are taken
as true. However, any light that we see must
pass through the vitrous humor of the eye be-
fore it strikes the retina. This being the case,
regardless of the speed of light before entering
the eye, the speed must remain uniform, de-
pending upon this medium (vitrous humor).
There should, therefore, not be any displace-
ment of the wave length of the light toward the
violet.
Light traveling through water has a slower
speed than through air, and yet a person view-
ing light through this medium, when submerged,
does not experience any change of wave length.
If this analogy be a true one, there should
neither be a change in wave length, as de-
scribed by the author, for light traveling slower
inside the blister.
Also the dual nature of light — waves or par-
ticles — should be considered. With each color
of light there is associated energy equal to
“hv,” where “h” is Plank’s constant and “v”
is the frequency of light. Therefore, since the
speed of light does not affect this energy, it
should not affect the wave lengths either, be-
cause if the wave length is increased, there is
less energy associated With it. — Gordon M. Dun-
ning, 37 % E. Court Street. Cortland, New York.
Attention , Amateur Experimenter .
Dear Mr. Tremaine :
I am a constant reader of Astounding Stories
and among other things, enjoy the Science Dis-
cussions department very much.
I realize that many of your readers pursue
scientific hobbies, but. due to many factors, can-
not contact others in that field.
I propose to set up a nonprofit organization
to act as a clearing house of scientific informa-
tion for the amateur experimenter.
So, come on all you chemists, biologists or
what have you. write me for further details. —
George Jordon, Jr., 151 E. 8th Avenue, Roselle,
N. J.
paid for with good American money, and then
proves to be a hodge-podge of inaccurate facts
such as The Talking Hill turned out to be. what
can be expected from an ordinary reader in the
way of accurate information?
In your editorial you cite Science Discussions
as being valuable because it enables us to s^e
both viewpoints. How about our viewpoint in
the elimination of Brass Tacks? In fact, from
an editorial viewpoint, probably the best thing
about its discontinuance is that letters like this
can now be quietly consigned to the wastebasket,
while the magazine is fr»*e to do as it pleases. —
Richard H. Jamison, Rural Route No. 1, Valley
Park, Missouri.
Stories Most Important .
Dear Mr. Tremaine :
In the heat and furor of scientific discussion,
the readers are forgetting all about the stories,
which, after all, are the most important part of
the magazine. So, if you don’t mind, I’m going
to go Brass Tacky for a minute.
1. Galactic Patrol promises to be, as you
BRASS TACKS
Do you want this department restored? If so — write now!
BRASS TACKS
159
have eaid, the best of the efforts of E. E. Smith,
if that’s possible. I only read parts of the Sky-
lurk of Valeron, unfortunately, and it seemed to
he the ultimate in science-fiction.
2. Please publish a sequel to Frontier of the
Unknown, for I think it left erery one in a
irtate of suspense. Crystallized Thought also
calls for a sequel.
3. The one and only kick I have is this : no
more hackneyed stories like Gravity , Unaffected.
Otherwise, 1 think you have the greatest publi-
cation of any kind in America.
4. Let’s hear more of Ron Goneen (Released
Xntropy), Sam, Kleon and Beltan (Past, Present
and Future). Deverel and Colbie (Jupiter Trap),
and Glyn Weston (Seeker of To-morrow ). —
Henry Boernstein, 1071 Mount Royal Boulevard,
Montreal, Canada.
Can’t Stop!
Dear Editor :
Now for the August issue. Tou can expect
* commentary every month. Now I’ve started,
I can’t stop !
Keleased Entropy, by Williamson : Jack turns
out extra-good stories, and this one promises to
he typical. Clad to see Wesso getting more
work.
Frontier of the Unknown, by Knight : The
story did not hold my interest, so that makes
it poor, because 1 read for entertainment. Dold
gets better, but his men look underfed.
Crystallized Thought, by Kchachner. Dear
Nat. bare you been reading "Hawk Carse”?
There was in that highly interesting series a
story called “The Affair of the Brains.” Your
story was too much like it for me. Astounding
is searching for new ideas. I take back my
former statement. Dold is getting worse.
Jupiter Trap, by Roekiynne : Not so bad.
Dold is getting worser, and will soon be down
to the level of Morey !
Specialization, by Winterbotham : Tour
short stories aren’t as good as formerly, and the
illustration did not make me jump for joy.
Statement of the Ownership, Manage-
ment, etc., required by the Acts of
Congress of August 24, 1912, and
March 3, 1933, of Astounding Stories,
published monthly, at New York,
N. Y., for October 1, 1937.
State of New Tork, County of New Tork (a».)
Before me. a Notary Public, in and for the
State and county aforesaid, personally appeared
H. W Ralston, who, having been duly sworn
according to law, deposes and says that he
is Vice President of Street A Smith Publica-
tions, Inc., publishers of Astounding Stories,
and that the following is, to the best of his
knowledge and belief, a true statement of the
ownership, management, etc., of the aforesaid
publication for the date shown in the above cap-
tion, required by the Act of August 24, 1912,
as amended by the Act of March 3, 1933, em-
bodied in section 537, Postal Laws and Regu-
lations, to wit :
1. That the names and addresses of the pub-
lisher, editor, managing editor, and business
managers are : Publishers, Street A Smith Pub-
lications, Inc., 79-89 Seventh Avenue, New
Tork, N. T. ; editor, F. Orlin Tremaine, 79 Sev-
enth Avenue, New Tork, N. T. : managing edi-
tors, Street A Smith Publications, Inc., 79-89
Seventh Avenue, New York, N. Y. ; business
managers. Street A Smith Publications, Inc.,
79-89 Seventh Avenue, New Tork, N. Y.
2. That the owners are : Street A Smith
Publications, Inc., 79-89 Seventh Avenue, New
Tork, N. Y., a corporation owned through stock
Temporary Warp, by Long : Too many “warp”
stories ; too many poor illustrations. If Scbnee-
man did one illustration per year, it would be
one too many for me.
The Time Bender, by Saari : Oliver E. is an
up-and-coming author. Illustration not so bet.
Space Blister, by Clark : Hardly worthy of
the brain of a Pb.D. The illustration was an
example of what not to put in Astounding.
Smallpox of Space, by Campbell : This series
is extra good. The illustrations are extra
lousy.
What Are Positrons f by Swisher: I still
don’t know wbat they are, but 1 do know they
took up too much story space in the book. One
article per month is enough.
Editor’s Page : One of the most interesting
features of the magazine.
Science Discussions : There iB too much
shouting about notbing, and the whole thing
has the atmosphere of arguing for the sake of
arguing. Also, every one wants to suggest a
new subject and no one wants to debate on the
other fellow’s suggestion. Brass Tacks please !
The cover was excellent. I am glad to see
that Wesso has done the cover and illustrations
for The Galactic Patrol and am also glad to seo
you recognize real talent.
Trimmed edges are back. Thanks. I almost
feared you could not stand the (financial) strain,
and the July issue will stand out like a sore
thumb, in my collection.
I am glad to see you putting 1937 beside the
month on ihe back of the magazine. — Ronald
Armitage, 30 Nicholson Road, Sheffield 8,
England.
Plato.
Dear Mr. Tremaine :
Cheers, growing louder as increasing distance
intercepts them, for L. Sprague de Camp's char-
acterization of Plato : "Professional wind-hags,
like Plato.”
More and more on the topic of Atian, please.
— C. B. Loomis, Manhattan Beach, California.
holdings by the Estate of Ormond G. Smith,
89 Seventh Avenue. New York, N. Y. : the Estate
of George C. Smith. 89 Seventh Avenue, New
York, N. Y. ; Ormond V. Gould, 89 Seventh
Avenue, New York, N. Y.
3. That the known bondholders, mortgagees,
and other security holders owning or holding i
per cent or more of total amount of bonds, mort-
gages or other securities are : None.
4. That the two paragraphs next above, giv-
ing the names of the owners, stockholders, and
security holders, if any, contain not only the
list of stockholders and security holders as they
appear upon the books of the company, but also,
in cases where the stockholder or security holder
appears upon the books of the company as
trustee or in any other fiduciary relation, the
name of the person or corporation for whom
such trustee is acting, is given ; also that the
said two paragraphs contain statements embrac-
ing affiant’s full knowledge and belief as to the
circumstances and conditions under which stock-
holders and security holders who do not appear
upon the books of the company as trustees, hold
stoek and securities in a capacity other than
that of a bona fide owner ; and this affiant has
no reason to believe that any other person, as-
sociation, or corporation has any interest direct
or indirect in the said stock, bonds, or other
securities than as so stated by him.
H. W. RALSTON, Vice President,
Of Street A Smith Publications, Inc., publishers.
Sworn to and subscribed before me this 30th
day of September, 1937. De Witt C. Van Valken-
burgb, Notary Public No. 16, New York County.
(My commission expires March 30, 1938.)
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